Project Nightmare
by Pokepika's Haunt
Summary: Ashlyn Ketchum is captured by Team Rocket to be turned into a weapon. More inside...
1. Episode 0: The Beginning

A/N. Ok, so before everybody suddenly freaks out about the disappearance of several chapters, don't. That was entirely on purpose, since instead of starting a whole new fic and keeping the old one around for a few days, I decided I'd just delete ALL the chapters save for the author's note and the prologue which will be changed so you might want to reread that …

Umm… I'll be using Video Game Red instead of Manga Red, just because I think it'd be interesting.

Summary: Ashlyn Ketchum is only eleven years old when she disappears without a trace in the Kalos Region, falling afoul when Team Rocket decides that she's gotten in the way of their plans one too many times. In her place rises Lamia, a powerful pokémon created by the scientists of Team Rocket in order to further their leader's dreams of world domination. Hostile and distrustful, Lamia waits for the day when she can escape from the humans around her, but when a group of strange trainers break into a Team Rocket hideout and she is sent to deal with them, will she take the chance to escape, and when that fails, can a strange boy with silver eyes win help her find herself again?

**Warning! Fem!Ash fanfic ahead!**

**Disclaimer: I own nothing!**

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><p><strong>Episode 0: The Beginning!<strong>

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><p>Let mistake be made, Giovanni was a fearsome man, Team Rocket was a fearsome existence. He'd only ever truly failed once in his life, when he'd gotten overconfident in himself and his skills, undefeated as he had been, and was crushed by a then eleven year old boy. Defeated, trumped, annihilated, by what was nothing more than a child just starting out on his journey, still grasping at straws. But the boy was a genius, talented when it came to pokémon and battling. He'd even been able to tame Mewtwo, a pokémon he'd been fairly certain was completely out of anybody's control.<p>

But the boy that had so soundly trounced him before had disappeared without a trace. Hiding himself away on some hazardous mountain that only a fool would dare attempt, most likely more than dead now and buried under heaps of snow. It would've been so utterly _easy _to re-found his mother's work, rebuild Team Rocket from scratch and finally conquer the world. He could've had everything he wanted in just a scarce few months, should've had everything in the palm of his hand for him to manipulate and control as he chose. The world should've been his.

But then the _girl_ had appeared.

Just like the boy, she was nothing more than a child, a year younger than the boy himself at the time of her appearance. At first it'd been nothing more than mild rumors and subdued mumblings. One of the more bumbling idiots of his organization mucking up rather simple plans, and it had been the same group each and every time.

_She _had not been the complete and utter genius the boy had been when he was still around, but the girl hadn't needed the talent the boy possessed, when sheer instinct had more than made up for whatever she might've lacked. Where the red-eyed boy tamed Mewtwo, she befriended and abated the foul pokémon's anger. Where the boy might've captured a legendary, she won its trust and convinced it to fight at her side without the use of a pokéball. She was an anomaly, one that, maybe if he had bothered to nip it at the bud before it truly started to bloom, would've made for far less problems. If he'd even just taken her when she was younger, more impressionable, he could've made use of her strange abilities.

But it was not too late to have the child for him, of that much Giovanni knew. Oh she wouldn't work for him willingly of course, but he'd break her soon enough, and she'd become the stepping stone he needed to fulfill the latest of his plans.

After all, Mewtwo might not have been a complete success, but who was to say that that utter failure would repeat itself once again? And if the girl died during the experiment then so be it, one less nuisance to get in his way.

"How soon can the experiments begin?" Giovanni asked, eyes turning to face the jittery scientist all but fumbling several steps behind him. It was clear the man was nervous, and if Giovanni had been anybody else, he would've laughed at the clear cowardice the man showed at being in his presence.

"A-As s-s-soon as y-y-you are r-r-r-ready, s-s-s-sir!" He sputtered out, response sounding like a six lane pile up in his throat as he all but gagged himself. If he hadn't been in such a good mood, Giovanni might've ordered the man's death for the sheer amount of time it had taken the fool to respond. He had no need for idiots who could not answer a simple question immediately when asked. But he was feeling particularly generous after such a success.

"It is truly a shame then," Giovanni began, gaze drifting back towards the prize that lay before him, "That you cannot be awake for this, Ashlyn Ketchum." He spit the name out as if it were something completely and totally disgusting, a vicious sneer on his face as the child groaned, seemingly in response to the voice speaking to her. It made no difference though, she was out like a light and wouldn't wake until long after the experiments were over.

If she woke at all.

Giovanni turned away then, leather dress shoes snapping sharply against the tiled flooring beneath his feet, two grunts saluting as they parted from the door to let their precious leader through before following him out. He paused for a brief moment in the door way, serious gaze turning to face the fumbling oaf that supposedly made for a genius in genetic manipulation as he ordered, "Begin the experiments now!"

The scientist rushed to salute the man in agreement, somehow managing to knock his glasses to the floor before all but tripping over himself to reclaim the lost item.

"Let the nightmare, begin…"

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><p>AN. So what do you guys think of the new prologue? Hope you all enjoyed the chapter and thanks for reading!


	2. Note to The Readers!

Hey guys! Pokepika's Haunt here with some news! Though whether it's good news or not is up to all of you.

As you can probably tell, or maybe are beginning to, who knows? I've starting revising/remaking/whatever you want to call it, some of my older fanfics that I haven't updated in a while for various reasons that I'm not about to list.

While it's not entirely clear to me which fanfics need revision by my books or not, I should be able to come up with a list of some sort concerning the statuses of all my fanfics so far. I'll post it to my bio when it's done, so look out for that if you want more information on which stories may or may not be getting an update of some sort soon.

What I can tell you is that I'm revising Project Nightmare, and to commemorate/give it a kick in the rear end and get it going, I've posted three pictures having to the do with the fanfic on my DeviantArt page.

Anyways, I want to thank you all for your patience with me over the last three or so years, and I hope you all are having a lovely September and I'll see you all soon!


	3. Episode 1: Meetings of Importance

A/N. And here's chapter 2!

**Disclaimer: I own nothing!**

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><p><strong>Episode 1: Meetings of Importance<strong>

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><p>Blue was not a particularly nervous person, a little obnoxious at times and yes, even he'd admit that he had a bit of an ego on him, but he'd never been one to get easily worked up over just any old thing. After all, if he had been the type to do so, his hair would've turned gray and fallen out long ago with everything that had happened in just the first year of being a pokémon trainer. And besides, his rival had taught him far too much about how a stoic and cool head could go far in a particularly sticky situation. So he'd learned to do exactly that, remaining as calm as possible.<p>

Even that hadn't prepared him for the video feed he and several others in a room too small for them all to fit comfortably were shown.

It had seemed normal at first, if a little dull. A report on one of the pokémon gyms in the far off Kalos Region, words scrolling across the bottom of the screen in a language he hadn't bothered to learn probably headlining something relatively important to that particular location as woman in a rather trashy orange dress suit droned on in an overly false, cheerful tone about how amazing the place was and other even more mundane facts that would've bored him to tears. The perfect, picturesque town with the scenic view and a relatively challenging gym for those unprepared and gloriously stupid, but then perfect and peaceful had quickly turned into chaos and several of the people sitting in his general vicinity all but fell out of their chairs in shock.

That lovely gym that had been so _pretty _suddenly went up in smoke and flames, a fiery explosion that caused the female reporter to release a terrified screech worthy of a banshee and skitter off out of view of the camera, before she somehow collected herself and began chattering away now about something far more exciting and the video froze, paused via remote control on a close up of the now blazing ruins of Coumarine City Gym.

"As you can all see, at around one in the afternoon, a sudden and unexpected attack resulted in the destruction of Gym Leader Ramos' facility, causing mass panic and…" the man speaking droned on, quickly causing Blue to lose whatever interest the video feed had garnered from him at the end. They could all tell what it was, and what had happened, even if the cause wasn't as clear, but he had no idea why the man had to repeat what was plainly obvious for everyone to see. He wasn't entirely sure why he was even present for this, though obviously somebody had thought that having one of the "famous" Pokédex Holders present was a must.

Blue was sure that the man was going to continue on for an hour at least, maybe two if he was unlucky, and six if the gods that governed their world were out to get him. But then a shocking head of red hair barged through the door clearly uninvited or very late to the party, and cut the man off short a drawn out monologue.

"L-Lance, sir?!" The man floundered, dropping the remote and causing the feed to loop three more times on fast-forward before he picked it up and paused the video gain. "I'm sorry Sir, but what are you doing here?"

"Interrupting this meeting to request that you cease all investigations into this matter and hand it over to the proper authorities," Came Lance's response, his tone serious and brooking no argument into the matter. The man's eyes narrowed, large eyebrows furrowing as he stared the champion down in suspicion, and Blue couldn't help but wonder how the man thought he could challenge someone as strong and skilled as Lance when he could barely keep the attention of half the occupants in the room.

"And what are the proper authorities exactly?"

"That would be us." And if Blue had been of a mind to smirk at the moment he would, but he kept his expression cool as he stood up to join the group that had spontaneously entered the room without warning.

"Well, if you guys didn't take your precious time," Blue greeted as he turned slightly to watch the man flounder about the room for a bit, trying to come up with some sort of rebuke and falling vastly short of what he needed. The man flailed for a bit, before finally giving up and leaving, unable to find a single decent reason to refute the champion of the Kanto and Johto regions a thing. It was plainly clear after all, that the man could blather on till the sun went down, there was nothing he or anyone at his disposal could do to fix the situation, or even figure out what or who had caused the assault on Ramos' gym.

"Fine." He bit out, he and the rest of the little party he'd assembled squeezing through the doorway in hushed whispers, Blue waving his hands in a mocking farewell, before childishly sticking his tongue out at the quickly vanishing group and turning his attention back to the newcomers that had finally deigned to join him.

"You guys maybe couldn't have come a _little _faster?" He quipped again, throwing an accusatory glance at a certain red eyed rival who simply shrugged him off, silently taking whatever punishment that look promised as he took a seat, yellow mouse creature sparking as it curled up in the boy's lap. "Nice seeing you too, Red…" The youth shot him an innocent smile, and Blue huffed in defeat, taking a seat across from the other while everyone else followed suit.

"So Blue, care to explain what happened in that video, or should we call the blowhard back?" Brown hair and jade eyes shot at him mockingly, head propped up nonchalantly on a tan hand as she picked up the remote that had been left by the man from before and began flicking sporadically through a series of images that had accompanied the video feed Blue had been shown earlier. Green was nothing if not completely annoying in his books, but she was a friend, and however often she drove him up the walls, he would still trust her to have his back.

"Dear Arceus, please no! Anything but that!" He heaved out, head dropping with a thunk onto the long table before him and hands coming up to cover his head, as if that would protect at all. "I'm not entirely sure what happened, other than that video was fucking boring as _hell_ one second and then everything _went_ to Hell the next." He ground out, irritation and confusion clear in his voice as he motioned back towards the large screen mounted on the wall, Green doing him the favor of replaying the video for the current audience of 21 or so, instead of near 40 the man from before had somehow managed to cram into the not so spacious meeting room. He watched the mixed arrange of expressions that passed across everyone's face as they watched the rather boring report quickly turn hectic. "Anybody know how Ramos is doing? That was his gym after all, he had to have been inside when it happened."

"He's fine, or as fine as can be," answered a young girl, long blonde hair tucked under a pinkish red hat and hands folded neatly in her lap as her face scrunched up at seeing something so deadly happen so relatively close to home for her. If Blue remembered correctly, she and one other originated from the region the gym was stationed in, and while they both hadn't been anywhere near where the disaster had occurred, it was still fairly close that it left both very concerned. "He might've been in the thick of it, but he somehow avoided the worst of the damage when the gym was attacked. He's not quite sure what happened himself though. I asked when me and X here went to check on him." She continued. The boy nodded at his name being mentioned, eyes shadowed under a hat pulled intentionally low before further shrinking on himself.

"H-He said that everything was fine one moment, and the next it just blew up…" X, or Xavier as he was better known, agreed, picking up where Serena, or Y as X and their shared friends liked to call her, had left off. Their names were a little unusual, but Blue figured the rest of them had no room to talk, since the majority of them were named after colors and valuable minerals, and it was really just a nickname in the end.

"Anything else?" Another blonde asked, brown eyes clearly worried as she took the remote from Green and replayed the video a couple more times in morbid fascination. "I mean, it's just so unexpected… There had to have been something…"

"Um… well…" X stuttered out slowly, face scrunching in thought as he searched his memory for something to give the older, more experienced trainer.

"Ramos did say that he heard this sharp screeching noise right before the explosion that tore his gym apart hit." Y supplied, patting X on the shoulder reassuringly before, turning back to the woman. "Does that help at all Ms. Yellow?"

"Please, just call me Yellow. We're all friends here," the older girl assured gently, before nodding her head in response to the question. "Actually, yes, it does."

"That's good," Y said, sigh of relief in her voice as she watched the elder replay the video feed one last time. She seemed particularly fixated on the explosion itself, watching as smoke rose in bellows from what was left of the gym, before rewinding the feed to the instant right before the gym burst into flames. Suddenly, an unexpected voice snapped out.

"Wait!" Red called, hand held out as bright red eyes zeroed in on the screen they'd all been staring at in shocked wonder.

"W-What is it…"

"Rewind it," the trainer continued, watching as Yellow floundered with the remote a little before holding it up towards the screen and doing as the other instructed. She did as such, watching as everything rolled backwards. "Now stop, can that thing play it in slow motion?" He questioned, watching as Yellow's face scrunched up in concentration, before she finally pressed the correct button.

"You're onto something…" a boy with eyes the shade of jewels quipped, being only spared a glance by the senior trainer, before turning his head back with a nod of confirmation.

"Ruby, don't be rude!" A girl with brown hair quipped at the other, before turning returning her attention. Ruby groaned in exasperation, rolling his eyes before returning his gaze to the screen with a huff.

"Stop," Red suddenly called out again, interrupting Sapphire from badgering her friend anymore and causing everyone to refocus their wandering attention to the screen. The others hadn't spoken yet, but they often didn't when the eldest of the Pokédex Holders were present, unless something greatly dissatisfied one of them.

"Red, what is it you see?" Lance asked, watching as Red all but glared down the monitor before them, as if there was something he could see that they couldn't, which was most definitely the case at this point.

"…" The trainer in question was silent for a time, eyes narrowed as a hand slowly lifted from the table to point a finger at the image flashing across the screen. "Look, right there." He ordered, causing everyone to scrunch and squint their eyes, unable to see exactly what it was that had caught Red's attention. Yellow looked at everyone for a moment, before looking back down at the remote in her hand and fiddling with the controls for a bit, before she somehow got the image to transition from the screen sitting on the wall, to the table below their hands. She then fiddled a bit more, pressing several buttons before finally zooming in on the area that Red had been pointing to before. She re-winded the video once again, before pausing and re-playing it again, the video loop on the slowest she could figure out.

Everyone's eyes widened in shock, as they watched some sort of shadow zoom across the upper corner of the screen, before swooping past the roof of the gym and dropping or firing something that upon hitting the building, sent it up in flames.

Blue blinked in shock, both surprised and not that Red had seen something that nobody else had, eyes owlish as he started stunned at the video.

"Arceus… It was an attack!"

"You actually thought it was accident?" Green questioned, looking at him as if he were an idiot.

"No, but I wasn't expecting that!" He bit back, face immediately twisting into a vicious snarl, before Red pulled on the sleeve on his shirt and motioned for him to calm down. "What was that thing?!" He questioned, watching the feed rewind once again, and then zoom into the image they'd just barely caught.

"Whatever it is, it's fast enough that even slowed down, we can barely make out what it is."

"_That's _what attacked the gym? But why…?"

"Hey, Sil, weren't you telling me earlier about something strange going on?" Silver eyes slanted, and an eyebrow quirked as they stared coolly at the speaker, a golden-eyed boy with an ego that Blue was sure, remained unmatched, since he'd first met the breeder.

"Yes Gold, I was. And frankly I'm shocked you remembered, normally you can't even remember to tie your own shoes." The red head quipped, smirking as a near feral growl escaped from Gold's throat, the boy hunching over in a way very reminiscent of the pokémon he had grown up with and alongside, the dangers of raising young, impressionable children around pokémon with frankly minimal human interaction by comparison. Much as Gold liked to state otherwise, they all knew humans put him a little too on edge at times, and as well as he handled the extra stressor in a crowded situation, he preferred being near Red or Silver when given the choice. He was used to their presences, and they were familiar compared to everyone else.

"One time, one time! You are never going to let me live that down, are you?" He accused, and Silver smirked, expression every bit the smug bastard he liked to pretend he was.

"Of course not, it was hilarious and just showed how much of an idiot you are-" Silver was cut off as Lance interrupted, expression scolding and serious.

"Silver, I understand how much fun you must derive from mocking Gold continuously, but we have more pressing matters. What's this strange thing Gold mentioned?" Silver huffed, clearly upset that his fun had been cut short and crossed his arms over his chest as everyone suddenly zeroed in on him.

"I was looking into something, nothing major, just checking up on my father and seeing if he was up to anything that would be cause for concern…"

"Silver!" A girl with blue hair tied into two pigtails yelled out, about to jump out of her seat and scold the other, when she was pulled down by Yellow, who quickly went about calming her.

"Crystal, not right now."

"Anyways, I found something, but I wasn't entirely sure what it was…"

"And what is that exactly?" Blue questioned, pushing for some sort of better explanation than what the other was giving him. Silver's relationship with his father was tentative at best, but he was also their only link to anything the man might be planning, and their only chance at gaining a leg up and stopping what could very likely result in the destruction of the world. They all knew the horrors that could be wrought when a man had too much power, and Giovanni was one of the very last people they wanted to overlook in that regard.

"Red's not going to like this, I assure you… Especially after…" The implication was clear to anyone who'd known what Red had had to go through in order to make sure Giovanni never got his way. Going so far as to challenge one of, if not the strongest pokémon in the known world, and almost dying as a result, Blue still hadn't forgiven him entirely for that stunt and was honestly just thankful he'd come back to them alive at all, instead of in a casket like he'd originally thought. He was one of the few said pokémon trusted in a world where it probably felt like everyone was out to get it, though he hadn't heard hide nor hair of what happened after Red had released it back into the wild.

Red's eyes narrowed at the implication that that creature was somehow involved.

"What happened?" He ground out, gaze warning. He didn't want to hurt Silver, Blue knew, in fact Silver, alongside Gold and a couple of others were the last people who needed to be concerned about receiving the full effect of Red's wrath. But this was clearly something of great concern, and Red didn't like taking chances where it could be avoided.

"I hacked into their system, don't ask how, but… what I found implies quite a bit… If what I read was correct and I'm not just making a mountain out of a diglett hill, than they may be trying to recreate Mewtwo." At that news everybody in the room gasped in shock. Mewtwo had been a nightmare for Red, who was frankly the most skilled of them all, unbeaten save for Gold, who even then had struggled. They looked at Silver like he was crazy, and Blue knew they were all hoping he'd just been lying or playing some cruel prank to get them all worked up for nothing. Even Blue himself was hoping, but while he might not have known Silver as instinctively as Gold seemed to, he knew the boy wasn't one to lie unless it was necessary.

Red's eyes widened, a hiss of air sounding as he sucked in oxygen through his teeth. He was not happy, it was clear in the burning fire so carefully hidden in his eyes, and that fact that within seconds of the sound leaving his lips, Gold, confident, obnoxious Gold who didn't know when to shut his mouth at times, shrunk into his seat as if he'd just been bitten or slapped across the face for no reason. And Silver frowned at the other in apology, looking just as beat down as X on one of his bad days. And X himself was looking like he was on one of his worst days, shrinking in farther into his own seat than he had before.

"What?" He ground out, and he must've realized the effect he was having on several of the more sensitive members of their group, because he quickly withdrew whatever of his anger was leaking out and returned to his stoic usual expression that gave nothing away to those who didn't know him well. "What do you mean?" he asked again, this time far gentler in his tone as he gazed at Silver expectantly.

"I don't mean like they're actually trying to recreate Mewtwo, though there are signs that somebody has tried. So there's definitely a second one out there somewhere." And at that, they all flinched and a couple silently prayed that the two clones would never meet. It wouldn't end well for anyone. "They've been experimenting, trying to create this super weapon. Probably not strong enough to rival the first one, but definitely strong enough to offer a challenge. I don't know what it looks like, but it's part of some project my father commissioned a couple years ago and shoved onto the scientists in Team Rocket. Something called a 'Project Nightmare'."

"Project Nightmare? How original…" Gold joked, somehow managing to mask the nervousness that remained in his posture from his voice. Silver glared at him for a bit, and the golden eyed boy almost flinched all together, still shaken from Red's anger, before quieting.

"Unoriginal as the naming may be, the project details the experimentation and eventual creation of some new pokémon. And… I think there was talk in there of using humans as test subjects…" At that last part, Yellow gasped in horrified shock, hands flying up to cover her mouth as her eyes widened in disbelief.

"But… that's terrible…"

"Not if what my own father wrote in there was any indication. Apparently a specific human he had in mind to use as the experiments, someone who got in his way a lot after Red pulled that vanishing act of his up on Mt. Silver."

"Oh… the poor dear…"

"I have no idea if any of this has anything to do with the attack on the Coumarine Gym in Kalos, but…"

"It's all we have to go on… And besides, who else but Team Rocket would have any reason to attack a gym like that?" Lance said finally, eyes scanning over the others as he spoke.

"True…" Sapphire said, curling in on herself as she watched Red take his seat again, eyes shadowed as he seemed to contemplate something. "But how do we check?" At this, a boy with brown scruffy, untamed hair dressed in a wet suit and surfer shorts finally spoke up, hat sitting nearly forgotten on the table and pulling a folder from out of the messenger bag he carried with him.

"Looker reported back to me recently with the discovery of what looks like a research center somewhere in Kalos Canyon." He said, flinging the folder across the table for Red to catch. The trainer picked it up, looking it over before sliding it over to Blue to take a look at before he passed it on to Silver and Gold. "From the looks of it, it belongs to Team Rocket, but we're not entirely sure yet…"

"There's a mountain range and hundreds of miles that separate Coumarine from Kalos Canyon," Y stated, facial expression confused as she tried to wrap her head around the sheer thought of a someone crossing distance at such a short time. "How could anyone, pokémon or otherwise, cross that kind of distance and still have enough energy to blow up a building like that?"

"Y, we have to remember that this is Team Rocket we're talking about, and apparently some new pokémon they've created, possibly using some poor innocent as fodder. I highly doubt a few hundred miles are gonna stop them from sending this thing to attack others." The boy countered, ignoring the girl sitting by his side as she flinched at his harsh and frank tone.

"Raikutsu's right, unfortunately. This is Team Rocket we're talking about, and they're not to be underestimated under any circumstances. We might've taken them down a few years ago, but there's no way Giovanni just been sitting on his ass all this time, twiddling his thumbs." Red nodded at Blue's words in full agreement, a contemplative hum on his lips as he took the folder from Silver's hands and looked it over one last time.

"Gold, Silver," He said, immediately drawing everyone's attention to him. "You two, Crystal, Blue, Yellow, Green, and I will go this place out…"

"What about us?!" Y asked suddenly, expression furious at being denied the right to accompany them.

"No, it's too dangerous."

"But it's our home that's being attacked!"

"Serena," Red said, tone calm and deceptively even as he stood from his chair, watching from a seemingly closed eye as Silver and Gold stood up from their seats as well. She immediately calmed down, wilting into her seat, the picture of dejectedness. "I know you want to protect your home, and get revenge on whoever attacked the gym. But you don't know Team Rocket like we do. We've faced them before, we know how they work. You came with us, and there's a high chance both you and Xavier could get hurt. And besides, this might not be anything at all. Save your energy and your anger for an opponent that truly deserves it." He said, placing a comforting hand on the girl's shoulder, before motioning for the others to follow him as they left the meeting room.

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><p>"So when are we leaving?" Yellow asked, trotting to keep up with the red eyed trainer as they made their way through the winding halls. Red's eyes narrowed under the protecting of his cap, and he idly watching as Silver's own face scrunched up with guilt behind him, Gold trying to act as obnoxious as he possibly could in order to distract his friend from the worries plaguing him when it came to the red head's father and the criminal organization the man ran.<p>

"Right now."

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><p>AN. So what do you guys think? Hope you enjoyed the chapter and please leave a review! See ya!


	4. Episode 2: A Pokemon's Hatred

A/N. welp, here's the next chapter!

**Disclaimer: I own nothing!**

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><p><strong>Episode 2: A Pokemon's Hatred<strong>

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><p>Large, brown eyes watched on silently as thick, black smoke bellowed out and up from below, the walls of a once grand structure now crumbling under the sheer strength of its onslaught. All it had taken was one, simple little attack as it had flown by, and the construct had all but blown apart at the seams. Such a wonder of human ingenuity, gone in mere seconds, and all but at the flick of a dime. The entity would've been almost pleased with itself and the destruction its own power had caused, eyes narrowing at the sight laying before it, but a sudden, sharp noise grated through its ears, and it took all the strange creature had to not smash the rather delicate piece of machinery that the humans who controlled it had placed in its ears.<p>

"_**Contacting Subject PN001, with orders to report in. I repeat, Subject PN001, report in. What is your status?" **_A voice rattled off in the creature's ears, filtered and covered with static from the sheer distance that lay between where the signal had come from originally and where the creature currently was. It growled, annoyed and frustrated for several different reasons, most of which having to do with the sheer presence of the voice, before it turned its gaze to the humans below. It observed them for a few, scant seconds, watching as they floundered about like little durants, trying to make sense of the havoc it had wreaked on such a seemingly peaceful town. _**"Subject PN001, report in!" **_The creature huffed as the voice cut through its thoughts, echoing distantly through the communication device before it sped off.

"_Subject PN001: Lamia, reporting in,"_ a distinctly feminine voice echoed out, broad wings slicing through the air as if it were nothing, gaze narrowed as the creature focused on feeling the wind currents ruffling her jet black feathers, the earth and sky blurring as she sped past. _"Mission Directive: Destruction of the Coumarine Gym and establishing threat basis of acting officials within the Kalos Region has been accomplished."_ She stated, blinking slightly as the current suddenly shifted, throwing her off course and forcing her to spin to a lower altitude to regain her path.

"_**Good, return back to the base immediately for further instructions," **_the voice on the other end blurted out after a bit, static and the sheer force of the wind whipping against her body causing the earpiece to malfunction for a bit as she continued her flying.

"_Yes sir."_ Was her immediate response, trained and beaten into her over the years until it was as instinctual as breathing. The humans who controlled her would settle for no less than absolute obedience, after all, and she detested them for every single second of it.

They were greedy, the humans, safe and conceited in the thought that they were better than everything else, that they stood above all others and were supreme. They had no real power though, fragile little creatures that could be broken and destroyed far too easily. Their own intelligence was the only thing they had going for them, able to create life from seemingly nothing. Oh, they had some wondrous inventions, but it did nothing for their personalities. Only making them more arrogant in attitude and more greedy.

Humanity was a poison after all, so intent on surviving that they were gradually killing themselves and everything else around them. Eating away at everything until there was nothing left but corpses, she was sure. After all, that very greed was what had created her.

Born of a human's foul dreams and their ingenuity, a tool to aid in the ambitions of a mad man drunk on power that wasn't his to start with. A supposed leader had wanted a weapon to control the world with, and he had gotten _her_ as an answer. It didn't mattered whether or not she could feel, or what she thought of their precious boss, so long as she did what she was told. She held little freedom in that regard, and probably never would hold anymore until she managed to escape. But escaping was harder than it sounded, for as powerful as she probably was, the humans were careful in how they handled her, having learned from a past mistake. She had not been the first apparently, and her predecessor, whoever that might've been, had definitely left his or her mark.

They were careful, always keeping an eyes on her and making sure she understood her boundaries, what her purpose was in her existence. She was to do as their leader instructed, no more and no less. Never question and always silent, and if she spoke out of turn or objected to anything, there would be punishment. Swift and fierce and unforgiving till it left her aching and sore for weeks, hating herself and everything else around her. Even the other pokémon, far weaker than her and just as helpless amidst the cages in the room that made her home.

If it could even be called that.

No, that place could not be called home. It was more of a prison, but it was oen she could not escape from, and every time they let her go, sent her on some crucial mission of the utmost importance to furthering the dreams of world domination that plagued their greedy minds, she was forced to come back, unable to escape so long as they watched her.

'_How cruel they are,' _she thought suddenly, eyes narrowing as the lab came into view, a giant 'R' the color of blood etched brazenly onto the side for any fool to see if they bothered to trek this far into the canyon. _'Only let me out to cause destruction, then immediately call me back. I'd escape right now, and never turn back if I didn't know for a fact that you'd immediately have me recaptured. After all, I am your precious little weapon.' _Her expression twisted into a scowl at the end, eyes burning with a barely restrained anger as she carefully lowered herself down, a strange light leaking from her body and the air shifted, what was once a strange creature, a powerful pokémon, taking on the visage of a human girl with long black hair in the shape of wings, and the collar that had once felt so damning around her neck, now little more than a small reminder around a small, pale wrist in the form of a seemingly innocuous bracelet.

"I see you've returned." The voice came, snide and unforgiving as a thick, metallic door slide open, no longer filtered and all but blurred out by static and distance. Slicked back hair brown as dirt and sly yellow eyes narrowing as the person, clad almost completely in black, all but slithered out of the shadows of the corridor the door led into. "Welcome back Subject PN001." The tone was mocking, a falsetto of polite kindness as the human moved out of the way, allowing the disguised creature to slip past him and into the darkness of the building, leaving the warmth and brightness of the sun and freedom and fresh air behind.

She paused for a moment, eyes narrowing as her gaze drifted from the darkness that lay ahead of her, to a nearby cliff face. She didn't see anything strange, but something nagging at the edge of her sense told her otherwise. Of something that wasn't supposed to be there, something that didn't belong. A hand wrapped around her wrist while she was distracted though, immediately pulling her attention away from those nagging thoughts and to the human that had been designated as her personal handler when she'd first woken up, body cold and shivering and fear present in her mind on a cold, unforgiving metal table in a strange lab. "PN001, hurry up! You know the boss does not like to be kept waiting." Her handler ground out tugging her inside and slamming the door shut. She said nothing to his fierce attitude and the threat lacing his words, yanking her arm from his hand and instead walking on ahead of him. The human smirked all the same though, and watched her carefully as he followed three steps behind her.

"How was your little trip?" He asked, as if he actually cared about how she'd fared during the mission. She knew he didn't though, and that changed nothing.

"_Tiring and annoying."_ She bit out, telepathy allowing for the human to experience her own annoyance at him through the sharp and incessant pain that accompanied the thought she'd forced into his head.

It was what he deserved, rightfully so, in her mind, but he was going to punish her for it later.

He followed her to the room where all the other experiments and test subjects were kept, hundreds of too tiny cages crammed into one small space with no leg room or even and space to stretch. The humans were waiting for one or more of them to snap apparently, and liked to joke and place bets on who would snap first or come out on top when it all inevitably turned to bloodshed. She liked to think it would be the humans to pay, not the Pokemon, for their maltreatment.

"Expect training to be particularly rigorous tomorrow," the human said, tone smug as he shoved her into her own cage amidst the hundreds, and slammed the door shut, almost catching her tail feathers between the iron bars. She growled warning lay at him, eyes flashing as he scoffed at her before walking out, slamming the iron door behind him and casting the room into pitch darkness.

_'I hate him!' _She couldn't help but think as she carefully laid herself out on the chilled floor. They were truly terrible creatures, and she hd yet to meet one that would change he view on th matter, and she doubted she ever would.

Her eyes began to slide shut, sleep claiming her in the silence of the room, all the other Pokemon sound asleep in their own little "rooms".

_"They should just disappear..."_

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><p>AN. Have any questions about what's going on, PM me and I'll do my best to answer them. I hope you've all be having a wonderful day and that you enjoyed the chapter/episode! Please leave a review and see ya!


	5. Episode 3: Invasion and Deception

A/N. And here's the next chapter!

**Disclaimer: I own nothing!**

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><p><strong>Episode 3: Invasion and Deception<strong>

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><p>Gold lay sprawled out across the dry soil of the cliff he and the others had hidden themselves on, red dust clinging to their clothes and staining them a brilliant orange and the weather maybe a little more warm then what some of them were used to. The sunlight was harsh against their backs, but considering the situation they were all currently in and what they planned on doing in the next few minutes or so, it was a necessary evil that they would all just have to deal with at the moment.<p>

"So when are we starting this little operation again?" He asked as he pulled himself up into a seated position, sliding a bit against the rough ground in the process and eye twitching as the slightest movement caused his hat to partially slip off, and for the sun to nearly blind him without warning. He grumbled under his breathe about the sun being too bright again, and was quickly cut off from any more complaints that might've slipped from between his lips when Crystal immediately brought a hand around to slap him across the head, a clear sign that she did not appreciate the attitude he'd been giving everyone lately.

Blue and Red said nothing, far too busy keeping an ever watchful eye on the metal construct some twenty yards below them, and Silver released a tired sigh, far too used to the exchange to really care, though wishing that maybe Crystal was a little less loud in voicing her displeasure with Gold's behavior. Yellow was immediately up and at the golden eyed boy's side in seconds, scolding Crystal for the rough treatment and checking him over for injuries while Green showed up and pulled the bluenette to her side. Better with one of the older seniors who she was less likely to hit, then with Gold who already didn't handle other humans very well in the first place. There _was _a reason almost everyone amidst the Pokédex Holders had such strange nicknames after all, and it wasn't just because he liked to get on their nerves.

"Wait a couple minutes Gold, alright?" Blue finally answered, tossing a lazy glance over his shoulder as the younger pulled himself from Yellow's worried grip and scooted closer to Red and Silver. "I know it's a lot hotter than what you're used to. Kanto and Johto are far more temperate than Kalos after all, but we need to be careful. This is clearly Team Rocket territory, and we don't know what's laying ahead for us inside. That _thing _that attacked Ramos' gym might be in there somewhere, and we don't want to be caught unawares, now do we?" Gold huffed at the question, curling up and leaning a tad against his red head friend as he scrunched his face up in displeasure. It was clear that he still couldn't believe that anything short of a legendary pokémon could cause such immense damage in such a relatively short time.

"Did they ever mention who the kid was that they were going to use for this experiment?" Gold asked once more, expression dropping into a grimace almost instantaneously at the negative response he received from Silver.

"Nope," silver eyes glinted in the sunlight and narrowed in thought, face scrunching in thought for a bit before the boy continued. "There were no names, though a vague re-telling of sorts was given about how much this kid got in the way…"

"How long ago was this anyways?"

"Well, we're sixteen now, and when this occurred, Red was… what? Thirteen? He, Blue, and Green are eighteen now, and Yellow is seventeen… so… Four, five years ago?"

"Wow… wait, so how old was the kid?"

"I think the same age as Red when he first started out on his journey, so eleven. But from what the report said, it seems like whoever this kid was, was at least a year younger than Red when they started getting in my father… In Giovanni's way."

"Poor kid, probably was scared out of their mind when Team Rocket got a hold of them…" Silver's faced scrunched up at Gold's idle comment. He hadn't meant anything by it, he knew, but it still left a scathing mark, a reminder of just how messed up and cruel his father was. How could his father do that, to someone who was so young at the time? It had been a girl, that much could be derived from the report he had dug up amidst the clutter of secret files his father had had stored into the main databanks, buried under heaps and heaps of failed and scrapped plans and plots that together would've made for quite the successful scheme, but separate as they were, were nothing more than pipe dreams at best. And a good majority of the recent ones had all been foiled and scrapped for the same exact reason; a then ten year old girl who had a bad habit of getting in his father's way, and which may have cost her dearly in the end.

"You know, it's probably not too late to save them, Silver. We just need to figure out if they actually got a hold of this kid, and if they did, where they put them." Blue suddenly said, face screwed up slightly in a look of contemplation as he continued to eye the building below them, wondering how anyone could've missed such a blatant object in the middle of a barren wasteland so easily, Silver was sure.

He snorted slightly at that, disbelief clear in his expression as he shifted slightly, carefully maneuvering himself into a more comfortable position, Gold still leaning on him now looking half asleep. The boy never had done well in hot weather.

"That's if she's even still alive." Came the response as he glared at the brazen red "R" etched onto the side of blindingly bright, reflective metal, a scowl permanently etched onto his face at the sight of it.

"Giovanni hated this kid that much, huh?"

"The notes my dad left made it seem like he thought she was almost _worse _than Red, probably right below him on his list of people he hates." Silver bit out, hand curling into a fist at the very thought of his father and his cruelty. "There would've been no tears shed on his part if this experiment wound up killing her in the end." At the mention of his name, Red quirked an eyebrow in question, eying the two boys leaning against each other in question, before an inquisitive noise made its way from his lips. He shrugged before either could respond though, pulling back from the edge of the cliff and turning his gaze up towards the sky for a moment, before turning back to his little ragtag group.

"Everyone has their strongest pokémon?" Blue asked, hand resting on top of a knee, eyes quickly looking over the six others spread across the cliff edge just himself. At a series of nods that met the question, and more than few rolls of the eyes from three specific members accompanied by a look of displeasure, he nodded back, double checking the round devices clasped to the brown, leather belt tightly wrapped around his waist, before turning his gaze back to their de facto, red-eyed leader.

Said trainer reached down almost immediately for one of the pokéballs at his own waist, smoothly sliding across the scarred surface before throwing it into the air in one fell swoop. There was a resounding roar that seemed to shake the entire canyon and sent many a flying-type running for the safety of the skies at the rather vicious sound, before large orange wings spread sharply outward, and a second later vicious claws tore through three feet of thick metal, followed by a fierce blazing fire that left a gaping, smoking hole in the side of the building and something blew up.

"Time to rock!" Gold called out, the only warning he gave to the others before he gave himself a running start, pulling himself up into a standing position and then leaping off the cliff with nary a gaze backwards. Red made a sound of displeasure at the boy's rush, face scrunching up in concern as he hopped onto the fierce beast he had summoned with Silver and the others not far behind.

"That boy knows no patience, does he?" Green joked as she joined Blue on his pidgeot, eyes glinting and fierce and talons clenching in the need to tear through or at something.

"That little idiot!"

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><p>It hadn't been the screaming of the humans within the facility that had awoken her, but the blaring of the sirens as the room flashed red sporadically and startled the once slumbering pokémon around her. It was probably, maybe, sometime past noon, something inside of her assuring that the sun was at the very least still out and burning the canyon in its heat. Most of the scientists would've been huddled in the various small rooms littering the lab, their own little experiments tests running simultaneously, but those would've all been abandoned the instant the sign that they were being invaded was made apparent, and it would've only taken a mere scant seconds for the whole of the facility to dissolve into chaos.<p>

"That's it!" Came the sharp yell as the metal door slammed open, ricocheting violently off of the wall it swung into and almost slamming the human in the face as it came swinging back. It was her handler again, looking absolutely furious after weeks of absence, clearly distressed about the sheer fact that they'd been discovered.

'_And what in the world would've made you think that you wouldn't be discovered? Stupid idiot, you're inside a building with a giant red 'r' on the bloody side of it. I'm shocked you all weren't discovered sooner!'_ She growled in her head as she watched the man flounder about the room for a bit, flicking on and off lights as if that would somehow fix the situation they were all in.

"I can't _believe_ he's back! He shouldn't be back! He should be buried under fifteen feet of snow! Why he's still alive?! He's _back!_" He rattled off, dashing about the room, looking into a couple of cages, before making some sort of harsh, dismissive noise and flinging the smaller ones aside, ignoring them as the cages, pokémon and all clattered violently against the walls and floor. "And the Boss's son! ALL of them… Oh… He's going to have all our hides! How did they even find us?!" He groaned out, before falling into hysterics again.

It was funny, in a strange sort of way, to see a man that had tormented her so much before suddenly fall to pieces at the slightest that something might not be going his way this time. She would've mocked him for it as well, taunt him the entire time as he flew about the room near tearing it apart in search of something that would help him when in reality it probably wouldn't.

Suddenly he froze though, turning immediately to face her, only to almost trip over one of the cages he had thrown across the room, as if there wasn't some poor, living creature trapped inside of it.

"Of course! I'm a genius!" He gasped out suddenly, arms spread wide as if angels had come down from on high to bless him for his own good deeds.

'_No you're not, you're the biggest in the whole entire base. An amoeba has a higher IQ then you, but we'll just let you think that now won't we?' _She thought viciously, rolling eyes and releasing a disbelieving snort as the human all but tripped over himself trying to get at her cage.

"You idiot, what are you doing?!" Someone else bit out, storming into the room in much the same way her handler had, yanking the man back by the collar of his shirt before slapping him soundly across the face. "Quit floundering about you fool and get the cage open already!" The speaker was another of her handlers, far more calm and collected compared to the other, and twice as dangerous to her health. He'd never been forgiving of her mistakes and rebellious attitude, and while he was not nearly as sadistic as the other, he was swift and cruel in his punishments all the same. He smashed the other into the iron bars face first, before leaving him groaning on the floor to go and fetch her collar. There was a special stone set in it that they had either dug up or manufactured in some way in this region, and he was probably certain that it would help at least a little bit in the coming battle.

"Fucking asshole!" The first handler called out, turning on the other only to be soundly knocked onto his rear, expression dazed as his left cheek turned red and swelled.

"Shut up, and get the damn cage open, how many times do I have to tell you, you moronic fool! We are under attack, what part of that does your thick headed skull not get? Damn it all, do I have to do everything myself?!" He swore, ruthlessly kicking the other out of the way and snatching the keys from his writhing body to yank the cage door open and quickly fasten the collar around the pokémon's neck.

"There is no question, no doubt, do you understand?" He questioned as he yanked her out of the small space by the metal clasped around her neck, ignoring the vicious growl and angry glare he got in response for his rough treatment. "I don't care if one of the intruders is the Boss's son, or if one of them is some all-mighty god-like trainer risen from the depths of a stone, cold, icy Hell. All intruders are to be _eliminated_, do you understand?! Not a single survivor. Or you can consider yourself officially terminated!" He ground out, hissing close to the ends of his sentences before all but throwing her bodily at the door, she stopped her momentum short of impacting with the wall though, head low and eyes staring at the human, a warning and threat barely hidden behind the near ethereal gaze as brown eyes turned glowing yellow and Lamia disappeared through the door way in a flash of light.

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><p>Doors whizzed by as she sped through the hallway, following the sound of explosions as they grew louder and the building all but threatened to cave on top of her.<p>

"_Whoever these intruders are, they are certainly going to town on this place, aren't they?"_ She commented aloud, eyes scanning the signs of destruction that had already become apparent, despite the clear signs that whoever had managed to invade the facility had yet to reach this specific area. She almost rounded a corner, surveying some of the chaos, when something prickled at the edge of her senses, and she stopped just short a foot. She paused for a moment, eyes narrowing, before the very air around her shifted. Feet quickly landed on the floor with a soft thud, and she checked over her appearance to make sure her clothes didn't give her away as a member of the facility.

A plain white dress, or what would've been white, if not for the filth and grime that covered the cloth and the tattered edges that would've marked her as some poorly kept prisoner. Nodding her head in pride, she quickly pulled her best frightened expression and resumed her run down the winding halls of the lab, almost immediately crashing into another body as she rounded a third corner into what the humans had called "Sector C". The lab wasn't nearly so big that it warranted such a naming system, but it mattered not in the never-ending face of their pride, she guessed.

"Whoa!" Came the startled voice, stunned, golden eyes befitting more a pokémon than a human, meeting brown, and the boy, because that's really all he was, immediately scrambled to his feet. "Hey, sorry, are you-?"

"Please!" She immediately cried out, tone almost all too real in its pleading tone as she quickly scooted backwards across the floor. "Don't hurt me! I promise, I'll go back! Just please, no more!"

"Whoa, whoa, whoa there…" The boy soothed, immediately crouching down to her level, hands out and empty in a show that he wasn't equipped to hurt the supposedly helpless and frightened little girl before him. "I'm not going to hurt you, I promise. Just calm down a little, okay?" He asked, putting on a smile and slowly reaching out for her. She curled in, a clear defensive stance to show she didn't trust the boy just yet, and had to refrain from smiling at how she clearly had the boy all but eating out of the palm of her illusory hand.

"Y-You… Y-you won't hurt me?" She questioned, making her voice sound meek and fragile, shrinking back from the boy even further.

"Yeah, promise." The boy quickly agreed, slowly wrapping an arm around hers and gently pulling her to her feet.

"I-I've never seen you before…"

"Me and my friends… well, we're kind of invading the place. It's really dangerous right now, Red's kind of gotten a little uh… fire happy with that charizard of his, and Silver's not too shy about freezing the whole place over and recreating an ice age." He explained, hand reaching up to scratch at the back of his head in a familiar nervous gesture she'd seen many of the scientists do before when talking their precious leader.

"So you… You and your friends are the intruders all the scientists are freaking out about?" she questioned. Gold nodded, and he seemed to miss entirely the change in her tone as he turned his back to her.

"Yeah, stick close and I'll be sure to get you outta here, safe and sound." He said tone promising as he scanned the direction from which he'd come, before motioning for her to follow him. She did so silently, a sly, dark smile slowly spreading across her face as her eyes began to glow with a supernatural light.

"You promise?" She asked again, tone sickly sweet as she slowly followed the boy in the direction he had come from, completely oblivious to her true intentions.

"Yeah!" He shot back, confidence clear in his tone, as he turned to face her. There was no pokémon in sight to protect him.

"Even if I do _this?"_ She questioned, and it was all the warning the golden eyed boy had, before he suddenly froze up, some sort of strange chocked noise leaving his lips and he slumped over slightly, still on his feet. The boy said and did nothing for a while, silence so loud it was almost noisy save for the near symphonic backdrops of chaos back the way the boy had come. He resumed walking, steps far slower and more sedated than before, and she continued to follow him, making sure her appearance hadn't shifted at all because of her change in mood, and a sadistic grin on her face the entire time. She trotted a bit in front of him, wanting to see the boy's face one more time, and smiled at the sight that met her eyes before she let him walk ahead of her again.

His eyes had been completely lifeless.

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><p>AN. Ok, so maybe I enjoyed that last part a _little _too much, but I mean seriously, who can blame me? Sorry Gold, dear, I love your character to death in the manga, but you're just a little too fun sometimes to mess with. Hope you all enjoyed the chapter and thanks for reading! Please leave a review and see ya!


	6. Episode 4: Deception Revealed

A/N. I know, I was cruel to both Gold and you guys, but seriously, why is it so fun to pick on our favorite characters? I'm sure I'd be really upset if anything like this actually ever happened to Gold, but then again… You gotta admit it's kind of cool when the "good guy" main character turns bad in shows like Yu-Gi-Oh, Pokémon, Digimon, and such. I just wish they'd make it last a little longer than two episodes at most…

**Disclaimer: I own nothing!**

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><p><strong>Episode 4: Deception Revealed<strong>

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><p>Silver had been watching the grunts and minions of his father flounder trying to stop them from destroying the base, though that hadn't been the initial plan, he was certain. None of their semi-organized destruction was actually going to get them any answers on who or what exactly had attacked the gym in Coumarine and why, nor what any of his father's plans were in regards to this "Project Nightmare" that had been mentioned in the report. But considering who exactly it was they were dealing with and what they were facing, he guessed it didn't matter all that much. Red had no patience for the likes of Team Rocket, and he and Gold were both of a similar for various reasons. Crystal and Yellow were truthfully the only ones with no real personal stake in this, but unlike Crystal, who didn't understand and probably never would, Yellow was far more sympathetic to their hatred towards his father's creation. She'd understood and seen the damage they caused indirectly, and while she was not particularly aggressive or fond of fighting, anything that dared to even think of threatening those she considered precious would quickly and swiftly be crushed underfoot with little mercy on the blonde's part. Gentle she may be, but her anger was something even Gold in all his supposed cockiness feared.<p>

It all paled in the face of the sheer fact that he had no clue where Gold was, which was never a good thing in situations such as this. The boy had stormed on ahead when they'd first intruded into the building, pokémon all but running over anyone fool enough to not get out of the way the second the wall had spontaneously combusted and caved under the onslaught of the monstrosity that was Red's charizard. The great lizard was efficient, if not entirely ruthless in its attacks, and was quite fond of the currently missing golden eyed boy that its trainer had taken in one fair day two and a half years after said red eyed trainer had felled Team Rocket once already.

"Shit! I'm going to kill Gold when I see him! Where is he?!" He bit out suddenly, pushing all of his thoughts to the side and glaring at the grunts milling about, their pokémon and teamwork uncoordinated and plainly insulting if he bothered to think about it for longer than a second. He faintly caught a rather animalistic growl from Red as a response, and he knew the older trainer was just as, if not more angered at the breeder's recklessness.

Gold was no trainer after all, not like Red and himself.

He raised pokémon, and grew up beside them, didn't send them out to rip their opponents to shreds like he and Red did so often before and even now. He wasn't ruthless enough, but Gold didn't trust easily, and was even less forgiving of perceived wrongs. Cunningness and a will to hold grudges for unnecessary amounts of time often made for a dangerous trainer, but being raised alongside pokémon had blunted that blade beyond repair. Gold could fight, and wasn't reluctant to do so like Yellow was, but he'd never be as efficient as the Trader and the Battler of the Pokédex Holders.

"This is bad… Red, can you use your espeon to find Gold? We can't have him so far from us!" Blue asked suddenly from over the cacophony, his rhyhorn gouging out the earth beneath several Rockets feet, before tossing them all into the air, pokémon included to land mercilessly in the path of one of Green's blastoise's Hydro Pump. It was a cruel unforgiving move, but necessary considering how outnumbered they were and just how chaotic the battlefield was.

"…" Red said nothing to the question, his hand twitching slightly as the pink cat in question hummed silently for a split second, before recoiling as if in fear of something they couldn't see. Her trainer's eyes narrowed in confusion at that, something clearly having startled the normally cool and collected psychic-type, and surveyed their surroundings as the battle finally calmed down, a good majority of the grunts having been taken down and out while they were conversing. He kneeled down to the creature's level, patting her head soothingly as she coiled around his feet, clearly distressed and a worried expression on her face. She turned to hallway that Gold had disappeared down some hours or so before, and growled low in her throat, threatening something that they could not see.

Silver took the strange behavior for what it was worth, hand reaching down to a pokéball in much the same fashion as Red, and readied to release one of his more powerful pokémon to attack the oncoming threat. The others all stooped low to the ground questions clear on their face, and wondering if maybe they hadn't attacked the base when Silver's father was visiting. They were shocked however, stunned silent, as Gold appeared from the shadows, silent and acting a little strange, as if something had maybe stunned him. Silver was almost afraid to ask what he might've seen, but the boy said nothing upon coming into their sight, stopping just a few feet short of the group.

"Gold!" Yellow called out, relief clear in her voice as she ran to greet the boy, hands reaching up to land on both shoulders as she looked him over for any injuries. "Oh, I'm so glad to see you're okay. We were a little worried when you ran off ahead like that." She commented, adjusting his hat and brushing some dirt from Gold's clothes, just the same as if his mother had been present with them.

"You idiot! You attract trouble like a pikachu attracts magneton! What made you think is was such a brilliant idea to run off like that?!" Silver questioned, concern clear on his face at Gold's strange behavior. He wasn't reacting to Yellow's motherly concern, and usually when that happened, he got flustered and started to talk and yell really loudly in order to get her to stop, which only made it worse for him, because then Red would step in and Silver would take the chance to mock him for it later. Still there was no response, and even Red, who was normally so calm and kept together, began to look on edge at the strange behavior the younger was exhibiting.

"Gold…"

"Gold? What's the matter, are you okay?" Yellow questioned gently, taking a step back to get a better look at the boy's face. There was a gasp of shock, and suddenly her feet were off the ground, Gold holding her up by her own neck and chocking the life out of her. "Gold!" She gasped out, the others frozen in shock at the sudden turn of events. "Gold, stop! You're hurting me!" He gave no inclination of hearing her pleas, and his grip seemed to only tighten in response, causing the girl's normally tan skin to turn a palish blue.

"Gold!" Red yelled out suddenly, and tackled the boy suddenly, knocking him over and causing him to drop the blonde trainer. Gold hit the group, and laid there for a second as if he weren't conscious at all, but then stood up again, slow and teetering about before completely righting himself. "Gold, snap out of it… what's gotten into you?" Red called out, voice careful and heavy with worry as the younger slowly approached them. Still, there was no reaction, "That was Yellow you were trying to kill just now, Yellow! Do you hear me, Gold!" Red swore under his breathe was still no response from the ever silent teen, and hesitantly reached for a pokéball. Pressing the button, he quickly summoned the most familiar of his partners, long yellow ears tipped with black and red cheeks sparking electricity. The creature glared at its apparent opponent for a split second, before realization dawned and it looked at its trainer, question clear on its round, mousy face.

Why had it been sent out to face Gold?

"**Pika?" **It questioned aloud, and almost yipped as the very air around them seemed crackle and a strange, horrifying laughter echoed across the walls.

"_H__**o**_**w**_ cr__**u**_e**l**_…"_ came the voice, some odd, grating mixture between Gold's own familiar voice, and a strangely feminine overtone that made their skin crawl. Another childish giggle, and both Red and Silver released a rather feral growl, displeased at the fact that they were clearly being played with.

"Who's there?!" Blue demanded from somewhere off to his right, eyes narrowed into a vicious glare as he searched about the room for an enemy they had no chance in seeing. There was laughter again, and Gold's body visibly shook as the disembodied voice echoed out, this time seemingly coming directly from Gold.

"_**I **_**j**u_st __**w**_**a**_**n**__t_ed _**t**__o _s_**ee **__w_**ho**_**t**_**h**e _o__**th**_**e**r _**i**_**n**_**t**__r_u_**d**_**er**_**s**__ we__**r**_e…" Espeon released a growl once again, clearly displeased that one of her humans was being controlled by something, her fur standing on end and gem shining brightly as she prepared a powerful psychic attack to be released on her own trainer's say so, or whenever this new enemy revealed themselves.

She'd known something wrong the second she had felt Gold's mind, muddled and unreachable with her own powers, a fact she found strange, because while Gold was a very solitary creature, though far outmatched by her own trainer, she could always read his thoughts. To not be able to was strange and unnerving, and now she knew why, and it was taunting them all by staying hidden and controlling the poor child remotely.

"Show yourself, you coward! And release Gold! He's not a puppet for you to play with!" Blue demanded, standing guard as Green and Crystal gently helped the still gasping Yellow onto her feet. Despite just being nearly strangled to death by a close friend, she looked absolutely furious, ready to tear into anything that got in her way. If nothing else, she was ready to fight for Gold, even if they weren't all that close.

"_**G**_**l**a_dl__**y**_**,**" the voice echoed out from Gold again, and suddenly the boy convulsed violently groaning slightly as he came to his senses, staring at the others with clear fear in his eyes.

"Red…Silver?" There was a crack in his voice, a question on his lips as he stared about himself, confused and more than a little afraid. It was the first time, Silver had ever seen such an expression on the other's face, and he was certain, based off of Red's own, that it was a new thing for the older trainer as well.

"Gold!" Red called, relief clear in his voice as he took a step towards the younger. It was short lived however, as Gold gave a sort of chocking noise, hands flying to his head before he released a sudden, pained scream, writhing where he stood before he collapsed in a heap.

"GOLD!" And both Silver and Red rushed to the now unconscious trainer's side, the voice laughing at them all the while.

"Why you little…"

"_You little what?"_ Red stood immediately, Crystal gasping from somewhere behind them in surprise, and staring as a strange girl appeared from the shadows, clothing tattered and filthy, and looking very much like some poor unfortunate soul that had run afoul of Team Rocket's plans.

"Telepathy?" She questioned in shock, watching as the girl casually strode forward, gate confidant and arms swinging leisurely at her side.

"_What's the matter? Shocked? Speechless? Meowth got your tongue?"_ She was clearly amused with the scene before her, expression proud at the pain she'd caused trying to get under their skin. And she knew she'd succeeded, and quite soundly.

Blue and Green both opened their mouths to say something, various biting remarks on the lips of either as they glared this strange newcomer down. But they were cut off before they could say a thing, the girl, not much older than Gold himself, and looking angry. _"You humans are all the same." _She said, tone icy and cold as she looked down at the fallen trainer she'd been controlling earlier like a puppet. _"Only caring for your own and yourselves."_

"Not true!" Yellow objected, gasping suddenly as she was knocked back violently for her efforts, and sent flying into the nearest, still standing wall. Her abrupt flight was ended quickly though, Red's espeon, catching the girl before too much damage could be caused and bringing her safely to the ground again. The girl did nothing however in response to this, merely huffing a bit and turning back to gaze down at Gold, a slow, cruel smile on her lips.

"_He deserved every bit of the pain he suffered!"_ She said then, laughing as Red practically lunged at her, possibly ready to wring her throat himself for what she'd done.

"No he didn't! Gold was innocent!" Crystal objected, stomping her foot in protest to accusations that were clear in the girl's voice. "Yeah, he can be a little annoying, and he's got an ego bigger than both Johto and Kanto combined! But he's never hurt anyone! He didn't deserve being treated like a puppet!"

"_Please,"_ The girl said, rolling her eyes at the objection and making a sort of dismissing motion with a hand. _"He is human, and that is crime enough!"_ Silver narrowed his eyes at that last part, walking forward slowly and somehow managing to move around Red, the girl and himself circling each other like prey and predator, though he couldn't tell who was playing which role.

"You talk as if you aren't human yourself…" He began slowly, keeping one eye on Gold and the others, just in case she decided to take control of them as well. He wasn't entirely sure how he'd fare against them all, when he could barely bring himself to harm a clearly brainwashed Gold.

"_I'm never said I was…"_ And the illusion of a little girl dropped in a flash of light, revealing instead a creature that looked very similar to the Eon twins that Emerald had once introduced the Pokédex Holders to.

"What are you…" He found himself asking, stunned silent by the unexpected turn of events. The pokémon laughed, expression a mix somewhere between proud and disgust, though at what exactly was not entirely clear.

"_Subject PN001, Lamia!"_

"P… N… PN…" Silver's eyes widened in realization as the gears began to turn and realization finally clicked in. _'Project Nightmare!' _"Guys!"

"_And this, unfortunately for all of you, is your end!"_

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><p>AN. What? Anyways, I hope you all enjoyed the chapter and thanks for reading! Please leave a review and see ya!


	7. Episode 5: Prelude To Battle

A/N. Here's the next chapter!

**Disclaimer: I own nothing!**

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><p><strong>Episode 5: Prelude To Battle<strong>

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><p>Silver groaned as he pulled himself from between the debris and rubble, body aching and blood dripping down the side of his head from an injury he couldn't see, but could definitely feel. His left arm wasn't responding, and he was fairly certain he'd sprained his ankle at some point before he'd fallen unconscious, but it all mattered very little in the face of the fact that he'd been separated from the others by this new opponent.<p>

He'd known that his father's Project Nightmare was supposed to give birth to a powerful pokémon, some tool to help him in his quest for world domination, much like Mewtwo. But he hadn't even considered the fact that this creature could be so powerful. And how much of a fool had he been for letting such a tiny, seemingly insignificant possibility escape him? Giovanni was a man who held only two things above everything else, and the first was money and the second power. If money could not buy you everything, power was the sure answer. And having more of either was never a bad thing in his books. He wouldn't have been above his scientists doing whatever was necessary to create the most powerful pokémon.

But then again, hadn't the pursuit already ended in disaster once. Mewtwo had turned against his father the very instant the man had revealed his true colors, leveled his gym to the ground much in the same way this new creation had leveled the Coumarine Gym, and left Giovanni's pride ground into the dirt beneath his feet like an insect. He would've thought that, maybe, his father would've learned from his mistakes, given up on ever creating such a monstrosity and maybe put all that energy and effort into something else. But his father was stubborn if nothing else, and him being no short of manpower and money, the greatest scientist's that could be bought with a few thousands of pokédollars and their experiments and tests funded with the best labs money could buy. No, his father was not one to give up easy at all. And when one planned failed, what could go wrong with trying yet again?

'_Everything, everything can and will go wrong. Dad, you crazed psychopath… How far are you willing to go to see this succeed!?'_ He thought viciously, shaking his head as his vision began to swim before him and the room spun. His stomach lurched violently for a second, eyes wide as he tried to focus in the newfound darkness of his location, and he took a moment when his head was finally clear enough to survey his surroundings, before checking his person for anything that might've gone missing when he had first blacked out. That new creation of his father's was certainly something.

Powerful, just like his father liked.

"Hey, mind lending me your strength?" he asked finally, pulling out a pokéball from his belt and eying the device, unnaturally warm, even to his covered hands. The capsule shook once, and then again rather violently, the creature inside wanting out and into battle, even though there was no opponent to face at the moment. Silver smiled, reassured as he took one last look at his surroundings, before tossing the ball into the air with a click, the device snapping open and a great brown beast appearing in a flash of light. It roared, powerful and noble in appearance, the exact opposite of Silver at that moment, but he didn't care, far too beat up and bruised to give a single thought to just how messed up he probably looked. "We need to find the others… Can you sense, them?" He asked the great beast, who snorted as if the very fact he questioned it was an insult to its pride, before motioning for him to climb onto its back. He was in no condition to walk very far, and they both knew it. He nodded, a small, rare smile on his face as he pulled himself up, the creature waiting for him to settle down before taking off at a slow pad through a space in the ruins around them. "Thanks, Entei."

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><p><span>"<em>So… you do have one of the great legendary beasts…"<em> Lamia murmured aloud, watching the boy and the pokémon leave from the shadows, fire licking at its paws and spreading slowly with each step it took.

She wasn't surprised, to a certain extent, but she had been confused, stunned slightly at the sight of a creature that had sent so many of her handlers and their coworkers home. Shame and failure were a constant burden on their shoulders as they returned, time and again after a failed mission, curses and swears sharp on their tongues when they stared at their empty hands grasping at air and mumbled about how it had been so close, and yet they had been so far. Legendary pokémon were tricky beasts after all, gods and deities in their world with powers far and vast. It was no wonder that her handlers' precious leader wanted their power for himself, when some even held the ability to rip apart space and bring time itself to its knees. Elusive, illusionary creatures only heard of in stories and tall tales, and yet hunted down like dogs by humans who wanted that sheer, raw, unbeatable power for themselves.

And yet here one was, in all of its powerful glory, and at the side of a mere human child no less.

It all mattered very little though. In the end, she still had her mission, however against it she might've been, and so long as she wore the collar, her orders still stood. The boy would die, along with his friends, legendary pokémon or not.

'_Hmm, that could be useful…' _She thought, keen eyes focusing on the path ahead of the human trainer. The whole of the facility had been torn asunder to a degree, and there weren't many ways to go from where the human was at the moment. He and his friends had been nothing less than thorough in their destruction that the one single attack she'd used to separate them had caused the whole of Sector B and A, and what might've been parts of Sector D, to practically come down on their heads. They were probably very close to the place where the intruders had first entered, but the entrance they'd made was probably very well blocked by now, rubble and metal shrapnel covering the gaping whole they'd made and leaving it impassable for even the most daring of souls. Much of it was too dangerous for even a rock or steel-type to try crossing, and there was only one clear path ahead of the human to take. Wide enough for the legendary and human to pass together, but also narrow enough that it would be perfect for a sort of ambush. _'But how? Hm…'_

Her eyes widened, and if Lamia had been anyone or anything else, she might've praised herself for what some might consider complete and utter genius. But she was not, and she held no pride in any intellect she might've possessed as a pokémon. It was nothing more than convenient; a random pile of rubble just barely being supported by the metal beam that had fallen and caught on the opposite wall, makeshift and easily knocked over to cause a landslide of sorts. The human and legendary would be buried, and if the impact of sheer weight didn't kill them, a decreasing amount of available oxygen would, and with a fire-type out, it would only vanish faster. They'd suffocate, and if the human spared the legendary such a fate, then whoever was left of the grunts and minions that were supposed to guard the lab would dig the corpse out eventually and take all the pokéballs for themselves. A sad fate, but one that was inescapable if her plan worked like it should.

She looked down to her paws, clawed and feathered and began to concentrate, slowly and carefully so that she wouldn't be detected, a glowing white ball of energy appearing. She breathed in slowly, eyes drifting up to check her targets location, before her eyes narrowed slightly. She watched as the legendary pokémon visibly stiffened, fur standing on end as it immediately turned to face her, all too slow and far too late as she loosed the attack; a bright beam of light cutting through the debris and rubble standing in her way and just barely missing the two before it hit the wall and burst upon impact. Smoke and dust rose, obscuring their vision, and causing the human to cuss as the legendary shifted, trying to assess the situation. There was a sharp, loud groaning noise, what sounded like a sharp crack as concrete broke and fell, and the metal beam that had been supporting several tons of rubble finally gave under stress and the ceiling came down on their heads.

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><p>"Shit!" Silver cussed as the unexpected attack caused the ceiling to cave in, Entei shifting slightly as a particularly large piece of rubble came crashing down right next to them. The mighty fire-type roared, anger clear in its expression as it jumped out of the way of more falling rubble, before taking off back in the direction they had come. The ceiling was caving fast, and they were running out of places to go quickly, any escape route they might have passed quickly sealing shut as metal, shrapnel, and debris fell in heaps.<p>

They should've been more careful, more wary of their surroundings; there'd been no promise after all, that the pokémon his father had created wasn't still around somewhere nearby, following them and waiting to strike.

"Silver!" The cry came as a shock, causing him to look to the side, and his eyes widened at the sight of his adoptive older sister, Green. He quickly stirred the fire-type through the gap, the beast blasting through whatever was left of what might've been a wall, before coming to a screeching halt on the other side. The older trainer immediately pulled him off of the legendary's back, gathering his dust covered, bleeding and bruised form into a relieved hug, before looking back at what was left of the lab.

It wasn't completely demolished yet, huge sections of it still standing proud and tall against the barren wasteland it had been built in, but much of it was still in ruins, and whatever had caused it to come down like it had had not helped in the least.

"Green…" Silver started, staring at the woman in a mixture of relief and wonder, but was cut short as another familiar voice came, echoing loudly from the depths of the sections that were still intact.

"Is everyone okay?!"

"Yellow! We're over here!" Green called back, waving as the familiar head of blonde hair came into view, a relieved smile on her face as she pulled a very rattled, blue-haired trainer along. The younger girl grumbled, various threats being spat out as the two slid down a small slope of metal to join them, before turning back up to the spot they had come from, hands circling her mouth.

"RED! HURRY UP!" She called out, and Silver couldn't have felt more relieved as the familiar red hat covering black hair showed itself, a still unconscious Gold on the red-eyed trainer's back as he carefully lowered them both to the ground, Blue not far behind the two. Silver smiled despite himself, small and unsure, but relieved to see that everyone was for the most part okay. He and Green had somehow wound up in the worst of their own destruction, but the others had landed in relative, stable safety, though how safe an enemy base was still remained up for debate.

"What the fuck happened?" Blue questioned, taking in the two thieves dust-covered appearance and the smoking rubble that had been whatever was left of where they'd entered. "We heard what sounded like an explosion, were you attacked?"

"I wasn't," Green immediately answered, brushing some of the dirt and grime from her clothes before immediately starting on Silver, "But I definitely heard it as well."

"I think that pokémon my father created… Lamia, she might've attacked me. I couldn't see anything, but Entei definitely sensed something." Silver explained, wincing as Green accidently brushed against one of his many injuries, before continuing. "Whatever it was, it attacked using this strange, white beam of light. Nearly took the both of us out, though it didn't seem to bother Entei so much as anger him… It missed us, but it hit this metal beam that was behind us and knocked some of the rubble down as well. The thing just gave and the next thing I knew the ceiling was coming down."

"Sounds like you got ambushed…" Blue supplied, fingers wrapping around his chin in thought as he took in the explanation. Silver nodded in response, mind flashing back to the instant when Entei had started growling. It was strange that though legendary had sensed the threat, he hadn't been able to completely dodge the attack. Entei hadn't been aware of the attack until the very second before they'd seen it. The legendary beast would've been too slow to dodge out of the way, and that very well should've hit them.

'_So then why did it miss like that?...'_

"Ha, so _these_ are the great pokémon trainers we were so worried about?" The voice came, shaking Silver from his thoughts and drawing the groups attention towards the speaker. The tone had been cruel and snide, overly confident with no particularly reason to be as such, and it grated on every single last one of his nerves as his eyes landed on the tall, black clad figure standing proudly amidst the rubble. Arms were crossed over a broad shoulder, uniform surprisingly clean and well-kept despite having apparently crawled out from the ruins of the lab, and short, dark brown hair slicked back. His eyes were cold, and while he might not have made for a very impressive or awe-inspiring image, the clothes he wore marked him as one of the more higher ranked of Team Rocket's echelon, not quite an admin., but not that far below either. He was a threat, if only a minor one, and only if they gave him the chance to.

"Who in Arceus' name are you?" Crystal called out, both hands resting on her hips as she glared the man down. He wasn't bothered at all however, did not seem the least bit intimidated, and in fact looked very much like he found her threatening tone to be amusing.

"My name is not so important," the man began in response, voice dripping with buoyant as he waved his hand in a circle, as if dismissing the matter entirely, "That a group of children need to learn it. Especially when they are so close to death." He grinned then, his expression twisting as he stared them all down like they were insects barely worth the time of day. He released a vicious, nerve-wracking cackle then, finding the group as a whole far too amusing despite what was known about them, and jumped down from his perch amidst the rubble, kicking up a bit of dust and dirt as he landed rather heavily on the ground. He continued to chuckle and snicker, circling them for a bit, before finally coming to a stop on the other side.

The entire time, they kept their eyes on the man as best they could, Crystal shifting nervously as her arms moved to wrap around herself, while Yellow glared the man down, not looking the least bit nervous or frightened.

"Shut up, we asked you your name, you will give it to us! Or we _will _beat it out of you!" Blue threatened, immediately taking a step forward to face the man down, Red not far behind, a pokéball held threateningly in both their hands and ready to be used at a moment's notice. At that the man burst into laughter, holding his sides and guffawing without hesitation.

It took him a few moments to collect himself, a hand coming up to wipe at his eyes, before it fell from his face and came to rest casually on his hip. The man's shoulder's shook still, a noticeable tremble to his form as he continued to snicker away, as if everything they said was some hilarious joke and he was the sole audience to it all.

"Well, since you insist so much…" he began, hands coming up as he shrugged his shoulders, "My name… is Karn." He finally answered, bowing extravagantly in their direction as a hand disappeared behind his back. Silver growled out in warning, already ill-tempered and angry with the man, though he'd only been in his presence for little more than maybe twenty minutes at most. "It is truly a privilege to meet the legendary Pokédex Holders, renown around the world for their feats and skills in their particular areas of specialty… I find it such a shame though… To find that you've come afoul of something quite nasty. You must've had a run-in with our little pet."

"Pet?" Yellow questioned, slipping one of her own pokéballs into her hand as she eyed the man warily, not trusting him as his ridiculous act for a second.

"Yes, quite the wonder, isn't it? A creature born of human ingenuity, I must say those scientists couldn't have done a better job if they tried. Perfectly obedient and powerful, both traits Boss Giovanni adores in the pokémon that serve him. A little monster…"

"You sacrificed the life of an innocent, a child! To make that creature, and then you tortured it! That's not human ingenuity, it's nothing like that!" Yellow cried out, pointing an accusing finger in the man's direction. He looked at her confused, as if she were speaking another language entirely before bursting into another round of laughter.

"Ha! Not human ingenuity?! Innocent?! That child wasn't innocent, she was a menace! And she received the fate she deserved for getting in our leader's way! If it weren't for that little bitch, we would've had Mewtwo already back and under our control, and the world would be eating out of the palm of our hands!" At the mention of the clone, Red's eyes widened, even more startled when one of the pokéballs at his waist shook violently, the pokémon inside threatening to rip out of its confines and tear the man before them apart.

"That poor girl did not deserve this!" Yellow cried out, face twisted in horror at what the man said, before her expression turned to righteous fury. "And that poor pokémon didn't deserve a thing you put it through either! That creature is no monster, it's you!" She called out, about to throw the pokéball in her hand into the air and release the pokémon inside. She was clearly done listening to this man's insane speech, and Silver was fairly certain that the same could be said for the others, himself included. A hand stopped her though, wrapping tightly around the one carrying the pokéball, and forcing it back to the girl's side. Red eyes met brown, a warning hidden in that gaze, before the hand relaxed and Yellow pulled back to stand by Green.

"Enough Yellow, there's no reasoning with someone like him. There's no getting through a thick skull, you know." The man growled at the insult, visibly angry at the words Blue tossed so nonchalantly, before the slow sneer that was making its way across his face morphed into a vicious smirk.

The man chuckled, laughter seeming to be his default response for everything they were saying, before he glared them all down again, eyes dark and shadowed as the sky grew darker and darker.

"Ah, but you see… I have the power now, and with this, it doesn't matter what you think of me. You've all already experienced the power our Project Nightmare holds, especially your little friend over there." At the mention of Gold, Red released a low, near undetectable growl, shifting slightly as he finally put Gold down, allowing the boy to rest against a nearby rock. He was completely helpless, that didn't mean he wasn't protected. They wouldn't let anything happen to the unconscious breeder if they could help it.

The man snorted at the movement, lifting up a hand to reveal some sort of remote, eyes narrowed and a smirk still etched in his expression. "You know that it's useless. All will fall in the face of this power… Isn't that right, Lamia?" The man hissed, and everyone's eyes widened as Karn pressed some sort of button on the device.

There was a high pitched beep from the remote, and almost instantaneously, the ground began to shake and tremble violently, nearly knocking several of them off their feet and causing the rubble to crumble every further than it already had.

"Shit!" Silver cried out, finally hitting the dirt with a heavy thump. He hissed in pain, face scrunching up as he was forced to put weight on his still dislocated shoulder, and watched in barely restrained horror as the rubble he and Green had climbed out of, exploded in a rain of dirt and smoke. There was a strange flash of light, what sounded like a speeding jet zooming by, before the pokémon appeared, hovering at the man's side.

Silver slowly pulled himself back onto his feet, gaze wary as the others followed shortly after, watching the creature that had managed to separate them so easily before, and was the current cause for Gold's powerless state. The red head wasn't sure whether to be angry or not at the sight of the creature, some feeling of pity buried somewhere in the storm of emotions currently wracking his mind that kept him from completely cursing out the creature.

Entei growled at his side, paws spread wide to keep himself from falling like everyone else had, and glaring down the new pokémon, just as beat up and injured as Silver and Green. The legendary released a mighty, earth-shattering roar; some sort of challenge, he was sure. But the new pokémon didn't respond, continuing to hover at the grunt's side silently, expression blank and eyes strangely lifeless.

"Red… That pokémon, Lamia… Something's wrong with it I think." Crystal said, shifting closer to the more experienced trainer, eyes wary and wide with fear as she watched their enemies.

The man released a mad cackle, eyes slightly crazed as he point a finger in their direction.

"That's right! Be afraid! Now, you will see true power!" He yelled, the wind in the canyon suddenly picking up.

"Everyone! Get ready!" Blue called out, tone warning, and as quickly as they all could, everyone grabbed a pokéball from their belts and pockets.

"Lamia, use Psychic!"

"Go!"

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><p>AN. So this turned out vastly different from the original chapter. Hopefully it's much better than its predecessor, though it looks like the big battle will be postponed for another one. I hope you all enjoyed reading it, and thanks so much! Please leave a review and see ya!


	8. Episode 6: A Fierce Battle Insues

A/N. So here's the next chapter! And a slight bit of information that somehow eluded me. Red in this universe has all three starters plus Pikachu, so we're kind of going with Pokémon Yellow's version of Red, which appeared in Silver, Crystal, and Gold, and is probably more canon than the rest. I gave Blue Oak a Blastoise, just because, and he also has the Jolteon that would've appeared if you'd beat your Rival in Yellow at Prof. Oak's lab and Route 22. Green has Venusaur, but the rest of her team is pretty much the same as in the Manga.

Fun fact; in Pokémon Yellow: Pikachu Edition, how smart your rival is when evolving his eevee depends on two battles with him that come before you challenge Pewter Gym. The second one is optional and easy to miss if you don't bother to go to Route 22 before you head on to Pewter. This is how it works; If you beat him when he first challenges you at Prof. Oak's lab, and beat him in the optional battle at Route 22, he'll evolve his eevee into a Jolteon. If you beat him at Prof. Oak's and miss or lose the battle at Route 22, or you lose at Prof. Oak's, and win the optional batle, he'll evolve it into a Flareon. However, if you lose to him at Prof. Oak's, and lose or decide to skip the optional battle, he'll evolve his eevee into a Vaporeon. Interesting AI, right?

**Disclaimer: I don't own Pokémon. If I did, Ash would be a girl, maybe have a lucario, would've kept larvitar, and Ash would have a Pumpkaboo named Mrs. Pumpkin. Oh, and maybe be turned into a pokémon for longer than one and a half episodes. You can see now why I have no claim to the franchise.**

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><p><strong>Episode 6: A Fierce Battle Insues<strong>

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><p>"Ok Silver, you're the genius who hacked their data, what are we dealing with?" Blue asked as he ducked behind a rather large and hefty boulder, watching with as his blastoise was flung into the air, only to land rather heavily on its feet, canons prepped and ready as it loosed a Hydro Pump in what had to be the general direction of their opponent. The attack was stopped with a powerful Psychic though, causing the surge of water to curve around its intended target and nearly slam into Red's charizard, who took the air to dodge, before its wings began to glow and harden. The fire-type swooped down, fire licking at its maw as it charged the pokémon only to practically slam into the ground as their opponent seemingly vanished into thin air.<p>

The powerful lizard was stunned, eyes quickly surveying the area around it, before something invisible slammed into its side, sending the creature crashing into the ground below. It skidded for a bit, unable to dig its claws into the earth long enough to stop its momentum, before it finally turned its massive weight over and came to a halting stop, eyes furious and a Flamethrower bubbling in its maw.

"Shit…" Silver swore, ducking behind the same boulder with Blue as he watched his weavile fly back suddenly without warning, slamming rather bodily into the great lizard before dropping to the ground, more than a little daze at being flung aside so easily by their enemy. "Nothing really. It didn't say what the type was, or the attacks it should know at this point, I don't think they ever had a clear idea of what they wanted this thing to be when they were finished." He said, taking a second to peak out from behind his cover, as another powerful blast of psychic energy nearly knocked them both to the ground.

"Great, so we're going in this blind?" Came Green's reply as she joined them, eyes rolling upwards in exasperation, before she sharply turned towards her venusaur. The mighty grass-type stomped its feet, shaking the earth a bit and nearly knocking Silver and Blue over as it roared, the giant flower on its back shaking. "Petal Blizzard!" She ordered, and the battlefield was immediately swamped with a flurry of flower petals.

Blue squawked a bit, and Silver pinned himself against the rock at his back, neither able to see past the attack. There was some kind of roar from Charizard, and Silver was fairly certain he heard Entei growl angrily over the sudden cacophony swamping the battlefield, but he couldn't completely tell.

"GREEN!" Blue called as the attack finally cleared up, blinking as if he'd just been blinded by the sun before glaring the brunette down.

"What? It worked!"

"Yeah, if blinding us was your goal! We couldn't see! And you do remember that that attack damages your allies too, right?" He questioned, tone angry, as he checked his blastoise for injuries. The great turtle was still ready to go, rearing for battle and awaiting orders, though it did spare a rather nasty glance towards its fellow starter for such a reckless attack. The grass-type didn't seem concerned in the least though, the flower on its back glowing with energy from what it could get of the sun, before firing a powerful Solar Beam at their opponent, who was still recovering from being the blinding grass-type attack.

"Not so fast!" Yelled Karn, hand sweeping out as Lamia's eyes began to glow with an ethereal energy. "Use Psychic once more, and follow up with a Dark Pulse!" The pokémon said nothing for a moment, before a powerful blast of energy knocked the Solar Beam off course, causing it slam into the nearby cliff face. The resulting explosion distracted them for a second, long enough for Lamia to slam a ball of darkened energy into the ground below it, causing the ground to erupt. The powerful dark-type attack slammed into their pokémon almost instantly, pushing the larger ones back and sending the smaller pokémon flying before they landed shakily on their feet.

"It used Dark Pulse… How many types can use that move again?" Yellow asked, standing protectively over Gold, Crystal worrying at her side as Silver, Blue, and Green finally joined them. Red was eying the enemy, hand resting against the warm side of his fire-type, who looked a little worse for ware, a second pokéball in his hand as he glared the man down.

"Depends on the pokémon…Almost all of them are either ghost or dark-types, with a couple of fighting and fire-types, and more than a few fire-types… And some dragons…" Blue answered, brushing dust from his clothes, shooting a rather nasty look at the man across from them. Yellow hummed thoughtfully for a second, and Silver's eyes narrowed in thought.

"So Lamia is probably a dark-type, right?"

"Only one way to find out!" Blue called out, and he threw a pokéball into the air, the ball snapping open to reveal a rather furious looking electric-type, fur crackling as it glared down its opponent. The dog-like pokémon loosed a vicious bark, the very air around it charged to the brim with electricity, as its yellow fur bristled. "Jolteon, try get close! Use Bite!" He ordered, at the electric-type immediately stormed forward, kicking up dirt in the wake of its sheer speed.

The eeveelution slammed into its opponent, managed dodge what looked like several Shadow Ball attacks, before its jaw finally clamped onto the enemy's left wing. Fangs tore viciously, biting past a thick, protective layer of feathers and digging into flesh for all of second before it was flung aside violently, Lamia not perturbed in the least by the attack.

The electric-type hit the ground with a rather heavy thud, yipping in pain as it skidded across the dirt, before it was stopped by a careful foot, Charizard looking over the pokémon with worry. It roared what might've been a question, a low, concerned rumble in its throat, but the electric-type simply dismissed its worries, shaking itself off and standing proud once again.

"You okay?" Blue asked, kneeling at the electric-types side, a hand running down the creature's back. The pokémon butted its trainer in the chin gently, cooing at the young man, before it took a step back, fur crackling violently, and let loose a powerful Thunderbolt.

The fire-type roared at the sight of the attack, flames licking at its lips once again as a vicious growl tore through its throat. It took what might've been a deep breathe, head whipping around, loosed the Flamethrower it'd been charging up inside of it, the flames hot and unrelenting next to the electricity already pumping through the air.

Both attacks hit their mark, the pokémon writhing in pain as a sharp scream tore through her throat. There was an explosion, both enemies disappearing behind the smoke and fire, before what sounded like mad laughter echoed across the expanse of the battlefield, and it was all cleared away by a brief Psychic.

Karn stood proud and tall, not the least bit deterred by the sight of the heavily injured experiment, body shaking with laughter as he watched them all.

"Good, very good!" He praised from his place across from them, a truly mad look in his eyes as he spread his arms wide in some grand gesture. "That's right, resist! Fight till your very last breathe! It won't change a thing!" He cackled, before continuing. "You'll all _DIE _here!"

Blue growled, a vicious fire burning in his eyes, hand sweeping out in front of him as his blastoise and jolteon leapt out in front of him, ready to let loose another attack at their trainer's say so.

"Not going to happen!" He cried out, and immediately ordered his pokémon to attack. "Jolteon, Shock Wave, Blastoise, Hydro Cannon!"

Silver's eyes widened at the order for the water-type's strongest attack, and watched stunned at the two powerful moves shot forward, arcing through the air and tearing apart anything that just so happened to be in the way. They seemed to hit, an explosion following as the two attacks collided with the other side. There was a beat of silence, before more mad laughter was heard, and Karn's voice echoed out from behind the wall of black smoke bellowing up from the now heavily charred ground.

"Lamia, use Psychic! Clear the smoke away!" Came the man's orders, and the darkened cloud disappeared once again, the enemy's pokémon floating at his side, heavily beaten from Jolteon and Charizard's combined attack, but still very conscious. There was a strange glow around the two, and the Pokédex Holders' eyes widened in unison as they recognized the move that had halted the water and electric-types attacks.

"Protect?!" Blue called out in shock, eyes wide in disbelief at the sight of the barrier protecting their enemies. The trainer swore under his breathe, hands clenching into tight, angry fists at his side, before Karn began to speak again.

"That's not all," the man began, hand waving in the experiment's general direction, a confident smirk on his face. "Use Recover!" He ordered then, and their eyes widened even more as the pokémon began to glow with an ethereal light, all of its injuries disappearing in an instant. "Now, Earthquake!" The pokémon cried out, and the ground began to shake violently beneath their feet, rocks suddenly rising up without warning, slamming into Blue's rather sturdy blastoise and knocking his jolteon out. Red's charizard cried out, and the beast immediately took the skies, Silver and Blue on its back with its trainer.

They stared in stunned silence at the devastation that lay below them, the ground torn completely asunder by the one attack, and were both amazed and relieved at the sight before them, Yellow, Green, and Crystal, all somehow miraculously okay after such a destructive move had been used. Gold was still safe.

"That bastard! He's playing with us!"

"Calm down!" Red ordered suddenly, grabbing ahold of Blue's arm and pulling the trainer farther up on the dual-types back.

"Lamia… is really, really strong… isn't it?" Silver asked from behind the two, staring at the ground below them with an unreadable expression. Blue sighed, taking a moment to fully calm down, before he answered the red head.

"Yeah… I mean, look at all the damage it caused in just one move! And we still don't know what type it is!"

"Actually…" Came Silver's reply, blinking slightly as he recalled Jolteon's first assault on the pokémon his father had created. It hadn't seemed affected at all by the dark-type attack. _'Even for just a pure dark-type… That's really unusual. It should've done something, but it didn't even flinch… unless…' _He faintly remembered the time when Xavier and Serena had introduced them all to the rather foreign fairy-types. Some new species of pokémon, at least to the others, that was normally only found in Kalos, but seemed to be spreading to the other regions slightly.

They were an unusual type of pokémon, completely immune to the otherwise powerful dragon-types, but weak to poison and steel. From what Xavier had said, in that really quiet, timid voice of his that only ever seemed to get louder when he was angry, which was a rarity in and of itself, fairy-types resisted dark-types, as well as a few others. There had been the possibility, that this experiment could be part steel, but steel-types had lost their resistance to dark and ghost-types at some point, and that wouldn't have accounted completely for the lack of damage the normally decent attack did, despite the fact that the pokémon using it wasn't of the same typing.

"What is it?" Blue asked, shaking him from his thoughts. Silver blinked a couple more times however, eyes narrowed as he stared down at their opponents, before he finally decided to speak.

"I think I know what its typing is…"

"You do?"

"I'm not sure… But I think it's dark and fairy."

"What? A dual-type? And why fairy?"

"Jolteon's bite attack didn't do a lot of damage. In fact, it barely did anything at all." Silver pointed out, Blue wincing at the memory of how it had so easily flung aside his prized electric-type. "There's only a couple of types of pokémon that resist it, and that's fighting, itself, and fairy. We've already pretty much proven that she's a dark-type…"

"That just leaves whether or not its fighting or fairy… So then, how do we prove that?"

"If I remember what Serena said exactly, fairy resists fighting as well… That's it!" Silver called out suddenly, turning to see if his weavile still standing. It was, though barely conscious, and Silver worried if it would have the strength to accomplish what he needed it to. "Weavile!" He called, taking whatever risky chances he could. The dual-type immediately straightened, looking up at its trainer in weary attentiveness. "I need you to try using Rock Smash! Go!" The pokémon nodded at the order, and immediately took off with a cry, bouncing amidst the still standing rubble to get closer to its target.

The pokémon recoiled slightly as the fighting-type move hit, the damage minimal at best as Silver surveyed what his weavile had managed. The dual-type immediately retreated with its assigned task accomplished, at look at its trainer expectantly.

The red head chewed the bottom of his slip slightly as he processed damage, realizing that while Lamia had recoiled from the hit, it hadn't seemed very bothered by it. Blue's eyes widened at the sight of what damage had been caused, swore slightly when he realized that they might not be able to do a lot a whole lot of damage. They didn't have many pokémon that held an advantage over a fairy-type.

"What was that?! Did you actually think such a weak move would work?!" Karn mocked, arms spread out wide as he continued to cackle madly, that crazed, insane look still in his eyes. "You're all like cockroaches, refusing to just roll over and die already! It's a pointless struggle! Realize that, and accept your fate!"

"No, I wasn't expecting much at all really. I was just testing something…" Silver called out, suddenly the picture of calm as Charizard lowered itself to the ground, ducking slightly to let the red head down from its back. The boy slowly pulled a pokéball from his pocket, empty as he approached their enemy, and eyes blazing with a determination they had rarely seen in the Trader before.

"What?!" came Karn's disbelieving reply to that. Eyes wide and expression suddenly volatile and angry. "Then why waste the effort?!"

"But I wasn't wasting any effort at all! I proved what I needed to prove." He said, throwing the device in the air a couple of times, before throwing it into his other hand. "In fact, Weavile did exactly what I needed of him."

"And what is that?"

"Nothing much… Just to prove a little theory of mine." Silver shrugged, suddenly behaving as if they weren't in a life-threatening situation, and the other's stared at him warily, unsure as to what he was trying to get at exactly. Where had this sudden show of confidence come from, when before they were just struggling to stay on their feet? "Lamia, you're Project Nightmare, is a Dark/Fairy dual-type pokémon, a rare combination, in fact, probably the only one of her kind. So she's almost completely resistant to dark-type attacks, immune to power of dragon-types, and is damaged normally by fighting-types. She's also immune to any and all psychic attacks we might be able to throw at her, so Red's Espeon is useless… However… While we don't have a fairy-type ourselves that we can use…We do have steel-types… Weavile!" He called the dual-type over, who had, while Silver was distracting their opponent, gone to Yellow to get healed quickly. He was now ready for battle, rearing to go despite his earlier failures against an opponent it had never faced before. "Ready?" His trainer asked quietly, and the dark/ice-type nodded, immediately stepping forward, claws bared and a rather vicious looking smirk on its face.

Entei stood by its side, just as ready for battle, and to take any attacks the enemy pokémon would send the smaller dual-types way. "Weavile, quickly! Use Metal Claw!" Silver ordered, and the pokémon hissed in confirmation, before taking off at lightning speed, ducking behind rubble and bouncing off of metal shrapnel, claws glowing with energy.

For a split second, Karn lost track of the agile dark-type, eyes scanning rapidly across the battlefield in hopes of spotting it before the super-effective move hit. He was too slow however, and Weavile appeared from behind, claws slashing viciously into the experiment's back and causing the creature to cry out, before hissing at the dual-type, who disappeared behind his surroundings.

"Damnit!" Karn swore loudly, turning just in time to see the black and red body of the dual-type disappear behind some rubble, before he turned back to the creature. "Recover!" He ordered, at the pokémon began to glow again, only to be cut off suddenly as a strange power enveloped it. Lamia shook her head, empty eyes falling on the still glowing form of Red's espeon. The purple, cat-like pokémon looked rather pleased himself as he sat down, tail curling around his trainer's leg. "What happened?!"

"Heal Block… It stops a pokémon from using healing moves for a time." Blue explained, a proud smirk on his face as stood at his rival's side, a hand on his hip. "You're pokémon's not going to be using Recover for quite a bit!"

"But how?! She's a dark-type! She should be immune!"

"You can think me for that!" Blue answered, revealing his alakazam standing behind him, looking just as pleased as Red's espeon. "Miracle Eyes a really useful move, isn't it? Allows for a dark-type to be hit with psychic-type moves!" The Team Rocket grunt swore loudly, disbelieving that he'd been so easily and quickly outsmarted.

He quickly calmed however, a sneer still on his face as he spoke.

"Fine, I will still win!"

"Not if we have anything to say about it! Weavile, Metal Claw again!"

"Use Aura Sphere!" The man cried, only to gasp in surprise as the move failed, unexpectedly exploding in the dual-type's face, before yet another Metal Claw ripped at her sides, sending her to the ground a thud. He growled, eyes darting back to the Pokédex Holders, realizing that Red's espeon had interrupted him once again, the pokémon having used its own Psychic to cause the move to backfire on its user. "Damnit!"

"This ends here!" Silver called, out, and Entei charged forward, fire eating at its heels as it leapt at the still downed pokémon. "Use Eruption!" He ordered, at the canyon lit up, fire and lava surging forward from the legendary's maw and covering the two. There was a pain filled screech, and what sounded like something snapping, before Karn swore once again, backing up quickly to create some distance between himself and the fire. "You useless pokémon! Waste of space! Get up and fight! Kill them all!" He screeched, watching as the lava and fire finally cleared to reveal the heavily injured form of the pokémon he'd been controlling.

She didn't move for a moment, eyes closed for a few seconds, before they opened, revealing yellow, glowing eyes.

"_No."_ came the angry sounding response as her eyes glowed white with energy and a powerful psychic blast threw the Team Rocket grunt to the ground. Karn gasped in shock, fear now clearly etched on his face as he backed away from the enraged pokémon. The Pokédex Holders stood taken aback, expressions clearly confused as to the pokémon's sudden change in behavior. _"I refuse to follow your orders!"_ Lamia cried out, looking about ready to kill the human before her. The man released a pathetic whimper, cowering under the fury in her gaze as he tried to stutter out excuses that only fell on deaf ears.

"P-Please… Please! Spare me!" He sobbed, crawling backwards across the dirt as the pokémon he'd controlled before now loomed over him in rage. "Please!"

She said nothing for a moment, completely silent, before her eyes flashed white and the man disappeared altogether, a violent scream ripping from his throat before he completely vanished from sight. Lamia panted from exhaustion, eyes returning to a warm, dark brown color, body aching and sore, and injuries causing her to jolt and stiffen periodically as she silently took in her surroundings. She gasped, gradually lowering herself closer to the ground, before she turned to the Pokédex Holders, expression tired and weary from battle.

"_You know… you all are pretty strange for a couple of humans…"_ She said, voice strained before she released a pain filled gasp, eyes going wide before she collapsed in an unconscious heap on the ground.

"H-hey!"

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><p>AN. And That's it, I hope you've all been having a nice day and thanks for reading! For those of you who are curious, here is a general summary of Lamia and her move sets.

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><p>Species: Lamia<p>

Type: Dark/Fairy

Special Ability: Levitate

Moves: Dark Pulse; Psychic; Earthquake; Flash Cannon; Aura Sphere; Recover; Protect; and Shadow Ball.

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><p>She's got a couple of signature moves, but they'll be revealed later. Again, hope you guys enjoyed the chapter and thanks again for reading! Please leave a review and see ya!<p> 


	9. Episode 7: A Child Found?

A/N. And another chapter! By the way… I forgot what chapter/episode number I'm on… and another note, I'm sorry for any random… weird twists. I promise it wasn't planned, I swear! But the story just took a couple of weird turns, and I tried to tell it to stop honest, but the story was all like "Bitch please! This is more interesting!" And then bitch slapped me and sent me to the Corner of Shame. I'm sorry, but sometimes stories take a life of their own, and this one just did that… Don't kill me! PLEASE!

**Disclaimer: I own nothing!**

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><p><strong>Episode 7: A Child Found?<strong>

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><p>Admittedly, Silver had never been one much for hospitals and similar places, though he could stand being in a pokémon center for longer than five seconds. The sterile white rooms made him feel claustrophobic and brought up rather jarring memories from his childhood, those dark days when he and Green were still being held captive by Pryce and forced to undergo vicious training to further the man's wild dreams. That was behind him now though, and if Gold were currently present was sure he'd never hear the end of it. Scarred as the Breeder was, he liked to bury his problems and make an annoyance of himself to distract others from theirs.<p>

As things stood now, Gold was the very reason he was in a hospital in the first place.

He had no idea as to what exactly that pokémon had done, but the human brain was a tricky, sensitive organ that was essential for a person to live, and while Gold wasn't dead, Silver certainly wouldn't consider him alive and well. At least, not until he was up and annoying the ever living daylights out of everyone again. Ever since the mission had gone wrong, and they'd somehow managed to pull out a victory despite the number of issues and metaphorical walls that had stood in their way, Gold had been in a sort of vegetative state, not dead, and clearly still alive, if the doctors were to be believed.

They weren't entirely sure what was wrong with the trainer, and considering that what had caused the issue was a powerful psychic attack fired directly at what had have been his mind, there was no telling when the boy would wake up, or if he even would. It was beyond anything modern medicine was capable of, and without a psychic equal to or more powerful than the one that had caused it, Gold was far beyond anyone's help.

And what Silver would have given for the boy to be his lively, extremely sporadic and spontaneous self. Because watching the normally overly confident trainer lay lifeless in a too big bed in a too white room was a strange sight that Silver was sure he'd never get used to.

"How you holding up?" Came the question that shook him from his rather depressing thoughts, some odd expression on his face he was sure as he met familiar blue eyes.

"Oh… Hey Blue…" Came the slightly stunned reply. He'd be too hyped on adrenaline to really truly think about Gold's condition, and when they'd finally gotten him to a hospital, and the doctors had given the group their final diagnosis, it was safe to say that Silver had gone into shock for a bit. He might've passed out at some point, maybe fainted as embarrassing as that sounded, but his memories of the events that came after the news of Gold's health were fuzzy at best, and a downright mystery at worst. He just couldn't seem to remember, and much like a good portion of his childhood, he probably didn't _want_ to remember.

"Hey… Anything?" The older trainer questioned again, gaze drifting from the red head towards the familiar head jet black hair, made even more dark against the sheer white of the hospital sheets. Blue's face wrinkled up at the sight, clearly finding it just as strange and disconcerting as Silver did. It all screamed of quiet.

Gold was never quiet.

"It… It feels wrong…" He found himself saying, probably still sounding like he was in shock. He certainly felt like it, unable to wrap his head around all of it for even a second.

"As it should… It _is_ wrong… And unfortunately there's nothing we can do to fix this until that pokémon wakes up." Blue ground out the last part, a sneer on his face as his hands clenched. He quickly folded his arms against his chest, a swear somewhere at the tip of his tongue as he leaned against the doorframe and turned to look out into the hall. Silver couldn't blame him for it, he wished he could do the same. But he felt like he had no right, like Gold's current condition was his punishment for being the idiot he had been when he let his father get away.

He should've known something like this was going to happen eventually, Giovanni would not sit back and stay quiet once he knew that Red was out of the picture. But Red _hadn't _been out of the picture. He'd been up on Mt. Silver, training with Gold and occasionally Silver when he dared to join the two up at the peak of that Arceus forsaken mountain, pushing each other to become stronger, so that when his father did inevitably rear his head again, all manner of evil plots and diabolical schemes and a veritable army at his back, they'd be ready to take him and Team Rocket down again.

"Don't." The voice came unexpectedly once again; causing Silver to look at Blue like the man had grown a second head, blinking in confusion and feeling a little bit like an idiot.

"Huh?"

"You're doing that thing again, where you blame yourself for whatever it is that insane man you're just unfortunate enough to have to call a father did." Blue explained, expression serious as he stared the younger down. "Don't."

"S-Sorry…"

"And don't apologize!" He scolded again, snorting before continuing. "It's not like you." Silver somehow managed to find a bit of laughter himself, sounding tired as the little bits of chuckles and snickers made their way past his lips, before he sobered up again.

"I just wish it had been me instead."

"Yes, and then Gold will be the one sitting there in that seat worrying over you and wishing it had been him instead."

"At least he'd be conscious."

"And you wouldn't, which would put us in no better a position." Blue countered, tone having a sense finality about it as he quirked an inquisitive eyebrow at the Trader. Silver merely huffed, not willing to continue the argument, and unable to admit that maybe he'd lost that just a tiny bit, before their attention was drawn to a strangely cheerful, yet terribly annoying song. It was out of place and horridly sudden, causing the two to look at each other confused before Blue patted himself down and pulled out his pokénav finally. He quirked an eyebrow at the device as the rather irritating song grew louder in volume, before sighing and shaking his head with a roll of the eyes. "That is the last time I let Green borrow my pokénav."

Silver immediately burst into laughter, tears spilling from his eyes as he held his sides, suddenly feeling a lot better than he had in a little while.

"And what did you _think_ would happen?" He asked, words just barely intelligible amidst his uncontrolled guffaws. "This is_ Green_ we're talking about here, Green. If I let her, she'd put pink bows in my hair, put me in a frilly dress and call me Princess Silverena for a whole entire day, then take pictures to blackmail me with later. Just be glad that's _all _she did."

"Don't remind me… And Princess Silverena?"

"Just an example, now answer that before I take it and give it to my feraligator to use as a chew toy." Blue stared at the device for a split second, looking like he was actually considering letting the younger do just that, before heaving an exasperated sigh and pressing a button, bringing the device to his ear.

"Hello? Blue speaking…" the elder answered, turning to walk out of the room for a bit as he listened to whoever was on the other end of the call. "What?! Seriously?!" There was a beat of silence then, Silver looking at the other's back in confusion at the sudden exclamation. "Ok, be right there!"

"What is it?" Silver asked as Blue turned around, rushing back to grab the younger's arm and drag him out of the room. "Blue!"

"C'mon, we've got no time!"

"Blue… BLUE!" Silver yelled, yanking his arm from the other's tight grip and taking a step back, glaring at the other warningly. "What was the phone call about?" Blue huffed, clearly exasperated with his behavior, before rolling his eyes and snatching the younger's arms up again, resuming his near ceaseless pulling. "Blue!"

"Didn't I say we need to hurry?"

"What for?"

"Because!" Blue snapped back, yanking the other forward, before breaking off in a run that almost had Silver being dragged across the linoleum floors. "It's that experiment… Latia, Lania… Lamia, whatever she's called. She's awake!"

Silver's eyes widened at that bit of news, and suddenly Blue was the one being dragged instead of him.

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><p>She couldn't remember much of anything, or in all honesty, she remembered nothing at all. She didn't remember how she'd gotten into this strange building, filled with strange beings that she somehow knew were humans, but not much else beyond that. She knew she wasn't human, though she had a feeling that at one point that hadn't been true. She also knew that if she stayed in this room with a strange mirror and way too much clutter, something was going to explode and it wouldn't necessarily be her fault.<p>

Ok, maybe it would.

But could one blame her when not a single person she'd seen so far would tell her anything? She'd asked the seemingly nice lady clad in baby pink and wearing an apron, but the woman had just cooed at her, gently petted her head and instructed her to go back to sleep. She'd asked the pokémon that seemed to assist the lady as well, but that one had just given her a rather strange look before doing the same exact thing its human partner had done.

In fact, a lot of the people who seemed to work in this strange place had a strange habit of treating her like a newborn child, and frankly if one more person cooed at her like that, she couldn't be held accountable for anything that would follow afterwards. No matter how soothing the action was supposed to be.

"Right this way," came the increasingly familiar voice, gentle as the woman opened the door to the otherwise locked room, motioning several humans into the room. She didn't think she'd ever seen them before, and compared to the sickly sweet women that littered the place they were a rather welcome change of scenery, but she couldn't shake the feeling that she somehow knew them, and maybe in a not-so-okay way. "She's been conscious for a while actually, but we just discovered the fact this morning."

"Why didn't you report this sooner? That pokémon's dangerous!" One of the humans said, tone scolding as he glared the woman down a bit through unruly brown hair that struck her as increasingly familiar.

"She wasn't hostile if that was what you were worried about," the nurse replied, not at all perturbed by the rather rude response, clearly used to being yelled at by easily irritated guests. "In fact, since the first nurse came in to check on her, she's been rather docile and over all cooperative. She let us change her bandages and check on her physical health with little to no fuss at all, and even took very well to being petted." She explained, running a gentle hand along her neck, causing her to purr slightly.

While she might have held no end of complaints for the silly baby talk, getting a good scratch behind the ears was not unwelcome in the least, and no one ever said that she had to embarrass for purring like the animal she was.

This new group of humans seemed to think somewhat differently however, staring at her like she'd done something wrong, though whatever it was went entirely over her head. A rather strange looking creature that had been sitting on one of the humans' shoulder was the first to recover from the shock of her actions, and immediately clambered down, darting across the room quickly to join her on the little bed she'd found herself on when she'd first woken up in the strange room.

"_**Hey."**_ The creature greeted, seemingly friendly at first, though something inside her told her to be wary of the mouse-like being before her. She put on a smile anyways though, small and tentative as she returned the greeting.

"_**Hi,"**_ she nodded, wiggling herself deeper into the bed, before looking up at the mouse. _**"Who are you?" **_She asked, trying not appear to overbearing as she looked up at the other inquisitively. He seemed older than her, even though he was definitely smaller, and she definitely felt pretty young, though she couldn't a guess as to how many years she'd been alive. She knew how to talk, so she couldn't be _that_ little, but still.

The creature looked at her, expression confused, before he turned back to the human, probably his partner. They exchanged a look, something passing between the two that she couldn't understand quite yet, and she looked between them eagerly, hoping for someone to finally explain something to her. The pokémon, because that was what the creature was, just like the ones that helped the humans in pink dresses and white aprons, and herself, turned back to her.

"_**Pikachu, but my human, that would be Red, the boy with the scarlet eyes, calls me Pika."**_ He answered finally, extending a tiny paw out to her. She shuffled a little in her bed, because at this point she was fairly certain she could claim it as her bed, before suddenly giving the yellow mouse a hug. The group of humans stood stunned, watching in shock as she cooed over the creature. Seeing the pokémon with its red cheeks and mostly yellow body brought back feelings of fondness, and coupled with the feeling of nostalgia that the pokémon's name brought on as well, caused her to feel truly happy, though she quickly realized what she was doing and put the poor thing down.

"_**S-Sorry…"**_ she apologized quickly, hiding her embarrassment in the sheets of the bed as the pokémon brushed itself off and stared at her in complete confusion for a moment.

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><p>Pika blinked, shaking his head at the sight that met him once he got over the surprise that was a hug from a pokémon that had been, just a few scant days prior, trying to paint the cliff face walls with his trainer and companions, before a small smile came upon his face and he gently patted her on the head in reassurance. He remembered the collar, clear as day even from the safe confines of his pokéball; metal and difficult to break, and clearly meant to last, though it had crumbled rather quickly under the sheer power that was Entei's Eruption attack, even when the legendary had been at half health from the earlier earthquake the pokémon had caused. If the scars the pokémon nurses had found littering this child's neck were any clue, than the collar had been used multiple times for long periods. It had rubbed and chaffed the skin, and she was lucky it hadn't gotten infected, but then he doubted that the scientists of Team Rocket would've let their precious experiment get sick so easily.<p>

Because that was what she had been to them, a successful experiment to further their sick leader's demented ambitions. But to Pika, in the short interaction he had with this child, that was clearly what she was; a child, who'd been raised in an unsafe, abusive environment, and was lucky enough to make it out of there alive. It was no wonder that there in that lab, wearing that collar which had probably been designed to bring out the worst, most aggressive parts of her, and forced against her will to cause mass destruction when she'd probably only wanted to escape, she'd grown to hate humans with a passion. He almost couldn't blame her for what she'd done to Gold.

But then again, it hadn't been the child currently burying her face in the pillows and blankets out of embarrassment that had hurt his trainer's student and younger brother figure. It'd been the angry, abused pokémon that had been created from Giovanni's greed and forced to follow the orders of someone almost as insane with power. Team Rocket had hurt her, and in order to stop them, and by association, save her, they'd had to injure her as well. All of that had seemed to have a rather unfortunate result though. And while he was no doctor, and certainly this could be considered a good thing, because it gave this poor pokémon a fresh start, it also meant that there was a chance she could not help fix with her past-self had done.

She had amnesia.

"_**It's okay,"**_ He soothed, patting her on the head, in hopes of giving her some form of comfort, before he turned to his trainer, expression saying all he needed to without a single word needing to exercised. Red's eyes narrowed immediately, and with a short nod, he turned towards his rival, a short, quick conversation passing between the two before Blue turned back to the nurse.

"So how old is she?" Came Yellow's question, curiosity, overcoming in good sense the girl normally possessed as she edged closer towards the creature still attempting to burrow into the sheets. Crystal made some strange, flailing motion in protest, and as the child finally raised her head to catch sight of what the humans were doing, she immediately burst into laughter, tears at her eyes at the rather comical sight the blunette made in the otherwise serene room. Even Pika couldn't help himself, and the two sat there giggling like small children as she stared at them both like they were crazy.

The resident Nurse Joy came in then, much to Pika's amazement, the woman always possessing a strange sense of impeccable timing. She turned to Red with a respectful nod, before squeezing her way between the lower ranking nurse and Blue, to stand near the table. She ran a gentle hand along the pokémon's back, obviously feeling for any injuries that might've been missed during the initial check-up, while at the same time trying to soothe the child and make her more comfortable with the nurse fiddling with her, her discomfort at the sight of yet another new human causing her to burrow even further, if that was at all possible, into the bed.

Joy smiled reassuringly, before gently prying the child's mouth open and checking whatever or fangs were present. She made a sound of discomfort, and the nurse immediately let go, allowing her to shut her mouth with a bit of a snap, though she took the extra effort to make sure that the woman's fingers were well out of the way first, and frowned up at her, a pout on her face.

"From the amount of adult teeth… or rather lack thereof… I'd say not that old at all. Pokémon age a bit differently from humans after all, some age faster, others age slower. This one probably ages slower, so she's still very much a baby in a way. In human years, I'd say she'd be eleven, maybe twelve, could be sixteen depending on what the exact ratio her species follows, but in pokémon years? Little more than two at most, maybe three." The nurse smiled then, bending down to coo at the pokémon as she smoothed back jet black feathers just as dark as his trainer's hair. There'd be a shine to those eventually he was sure, but that would require a lot of effort on the part of whoever decided to train her, and a lot of special care. It was the least of his worries though, with the increasingly irritated look that the child was giving the poor nurse at all the baby talk she was getting. It didn't help at all that Yellow took that information as her excuse to throw all common sense and self-preservation instincts to the wind and start doing the exact same thing.

"_**What's up with all the baby talk?! I'm not a baby!"**_ she whined then, looking highly disgruntled as the senseless babbling continued. It took everything Pika had to not burst into laughter immediately at the expression at the child's face, and he couldn't but grin as he answered all too happily.

"_**Oh, but according to the nurse, you very much are!"**_ he contradicted easily, and immediately took that split second of shock the child gave him to escape to the relative safety that was his trainer. Red spared him a glance from corner of his eye, and the pokémon shrugged simply, taking a second longer to watch the pokémon practically have a fit on the bed, before giving up entirely when she realized that he was far out of what she understood as her immediate reach, which was technically a lot farther considering the attack moves she knew, but he wasn't about to point that out anytime soon either.

"What's up?" came the whispered question as a finger scratched at his chin, causing the electric-type to coo slightly before rubbing against his trainer's cheek in a return show of affection.

"_**It's just as Nurse Joy said. She's just a child,"**_ Pika answered, shaking his head slightly as he settled down on his trainer's shoulder. _**"Red, that's not the pokémon that attacked us and injured Gold. She clearly has no memories of what happened back at that Team Rocket Facility."**_ Red said nothing, still observing the pokémon as it shrunk away from the two healers who were currently crowding her maybe a little too much for anyone's comfort. He still had no clue what had gotten into the blonde, but he'd probably never figure it out anytime soon. _**"I mean, some part of her probably recognizes all of us, I'm not entirely sure why she hugged me like that though… But Red, **_**that**_** is **_**not**_** the pokémon that Project Nightmare, that Giovanni's madness created."**_

"So then who is it?" He asked finally, voice still a quiet whisper, one that probably only Silver heard. The boy had hearing that could rival a pokémon's, and was only outmatched by maybe Sapphire. Pika paused for a bit, gaze turning to land on the pokémon before turning back to his trainer to respond.

"_**I think it's the little girl they used for the experiment."**_

"You mean the one in the report Silver found?" At this question, Pika frowned thoughtfully. What were the chances that a child that young could survive experimentation for four, five, maybe even six years? He sighed a little, eyes narrowing before he finally chose to answer his trainer.

"_**Who knows?"**_

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><p>AN. I'm sorry, okay?! I have no fucking clue where any of that last half came from! The story's possessed I swear! I no longer know where I'm going with this…

Anyways, I hope you all enjoyed the chapter and thanks for reading! Please leave a review, favorites and followings are greatly appreciated, and see ya!


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